HOW TO SUCCEED AS A STUDENT

Kevin B. Bucknall

A totally rewritten and updated version of this is now available as a paperback book, entitled Studying at university: how to make a success of your academic course, How-To Books, Plymouth, UK, 1996, (ISBN 1-

85703-219-5)

Please note that some information in this publication may now be out of date (eg prices). Publishing agreements preclude us being able to keep the

electronic version up to date.

Copyright 1994Copyright 1994Copyright 1994Copyright 1994

CopyrightCopyrightCopyrightCopyright Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments

The quotation from `Dedicated Follower of Fashion' which was written and composed by Ray Davies is used by kind permission of Davray Music Ltd and Carlin Music Corp., London, England.

The quotation from `Alice's Restaurant', written and composed by Arlo Guthrie is reproduced by kind permission of Arlo Guthrie and Rising Son Records.

The quotation from The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp is reproduced by kind permission of Quentin Crisp and Gerald Duckworth and Company.

The quotation from B.B. Skinner is reproduced by kind permission of New Scientist.

NOTENOTENOTENOTE

This monograph intended to help you do well at university and was originally published in 1994 entitled An Academic's Advice to a University Student; two students informed me they felt the title could be improved so I am trying this one. Some of the quotations have altered from the original version because the copyright owners demanded money; this monograph is sold at cost to the university and is a non-profit publication. I would have been forced to increase the price in order to use the quotations I originally wanted. Other than that, no substantive changes have occurred and you can happily purchase the original monograph under the old title without losing anything of value.

Kevin B. BucknallFebruary 1995

PREFACE

Congratulations on gaining admission to the University and best wishes for the next three years. This monograph is designed to introduce you to university life, to help you settle in quickly, and to study more productively. It is based on over twenty year's experience of university teaching and dealing with students in three continents. The suggestions here should work for most people most of the time. However, everyone is an individual and you might find that a particular piece of advice may not work well in your case. It is suggested that you try them all out and if you find something is not working well for you, then ignore it and try something else. Always remember that you are seeking the best way for you, not trying to follow scrupulously some obligatory set of rules. `If it works, use it' is the best advice you can get, always bearing in mind that this should always be within the law and usually within the accepted social mores of the society you are in.

There is no one simple way of ensuring success at university but three elements seem to be common to those who generally do well. Firstly, they go to all the lectures, workshops, tutorials, and seminars that are set for them, pay attention while present and take notes. Secondly, they work for long hours on their own, outside the organised time. Thirdly, they use their time effectively. All these three factors are within your power to control and you should try to follow all three. The third one is particularly powerful, because even if you choose to waste your time and miss some lectures, you might as well be efficient about using the study time you do to your best advantage. Underpinning all three elements is the component of motivation. If you are strongly motivated, you can achieve a great deal. A strong will to succeed is a most important part of achieving your potential, both at university and in your future career.

This monograph has been written from the standpoint of an undergraduate in the Faculty of Asian and International Studies at Griffith University, but the advice contained should be useful to all. The advice contained here is practical and I do not subject you to theoretical constructs that might help us to understand how people learn but really are of

more importance to experts in the field than to students. I am not an educational psychologist, merely an ordinary academic of more years experience than I care to think about closely. The somewhat miscellaneous list of suggestions presented here arose from my experience in teaching over the years and advising students in and after tutorials and workshops, as well as from marking essays and examinations. As such, the suggestions are my personal view of what might help you to adjust to university life and help you to study better towards your degree. I decided to write my ideas and suggestions down, as every year I have found it difficult to find the time to communicate even a small part of the advice during the semester. The students and I are busy and there seems to be no natural place in the courses in which the suggestions could easily be placed. The advice is personal, in that it is my idea of what is, or might be, useful to new and perhaps the not so new students, including such non academic things as how to live cheaply.

Not every student faces identical problems or needs the same advice, so that the coverage is broad. This implies that you as an individual will not need all the advice contained in this booklet, but it is only reasonable to believe that you will extract the parts that you want for your own particular needs. There are a few books in print on how to study but those that I have seen appear to me to be excessively narrow in coverage.

While you go through Griffith University you will learn a great deal, some of which will be about how to study and learn. As you gain this experience, if you find anything in the advice given here that could be improved, or if you think of something that you wish you had been told about, or some suggestion that would have helped you if it had been included, it would be of great help if you could pass this on to me. Because I had to rush the finished product to get it printed in time for the start of the semester in 1994, there are undoubtedly mistakes and areas that can be improved. Please take the time to jot any comments or suggestions, particularly if some advice irritated you, or some advice that would have helped you was missing. Please jot anything like that down on a piece of paper and drop it into the internal mail addressed to me:

Kevin BucknallFAIS

Alternatively, simply put it straight into my pigeonhole just down from the AIS general office. The suggestions you make will help future generations of students, as you have been helped by the experiences of past ones.

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION AND HOUSEKEEPING POINTS 1Where To Live 1Transport 5Living Cheaply 6Settling in 10

2 THE UNIVERSITY 13Lectures, Workshops And Tutorials 16The Library 19

3 YOUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSITY 21What Is Expected Of You? 22Motivation, Time Use And Self-Organization 25Friends And Support Groups 28Sexual Harassment 30If You Have Problems 30Read The Supplied Information 32Mail 33For The Student Coming Straight From School 33For The Mature Student Returning To Study 35For The Foreign, Especially Asian, Students 39

4 YOUR SUBJECTS 45The First Year 46Choosing Your Subjects In Second And Third Year 46

5 HOW TO STUDY AND LEARN 51Attitudes, Values And Some Advice 51Some Advice That Reflects My Value Judgements 53Textbooks 56How To Study 59Language Study 60Note Taking 63Files And Filing 72Learning 74

6 PREPARING AND PRESENTING ASSIGNMENT 83Essay Preparation 87

Style 91Footnoting 94Some Types Of Common Mistakes In Essay Writing And Paper Presentation 97Multiple Choice Quizzes, Write-In Answers, And True-False Tests 104Revising For Examinations 106Examinations 108Oral Assignments 114Plagiarism 124Joint Projects 125Some Cautions On Joint Projects 127

7 SOME TOOLS OF THE TRADE 129Speed Reading 129Computers And You 131Some General Knowledge You Might Find Useful 146

8 IN CONCLUSION 151

1 INTRODUCTION AND HOUSEKEEPING POINTS

WHERE TO LIVE

`There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.'

(Quentin Crisp, Naked Civil Servant, 1968, chap. 15).

If you are not living at home with your family, you will need to find somewhere to live. You should consider university accommodation as your first choice. It will be easier for you, particularly if this is your first time away from home. You will be close to where you want to be, transport will be less of a problem and you will have lots of other students around. There are several different types of accommodation offered. You can apply for a small serviced Single Catered Room with all meals provided, which saves you cooking but is dearer. In 1994, these cost $153 per week, for a seventeen or eighteen week semester. Alternatively, you can apply for a self-contained flat for four, six, seven or eight persons. These are cheaper than a room including meals. In 1994, these cost $82- $92 a week per person. In this shared type of accommodation you are responsible for doing your own cooking and washing up. Not everyone who applies can move into University accommodation, owing to its popularity among students.

Renting a bed-sitting room from a private family is also a possibility, This may or may not have food supplied, depending on the price charged and what terms you agree.

An alternative is to share a house or flat off-campus with other students. This is often more desirable later, when you have gained experience, started to spread your wings a little and perhaps wish to flap them more. Note that the more people you share with, the cheaper it becomes for each, but the downside is that it gets noisier and the distractions increase. For some reason if you double the number of people the distractions seem to increase geometrically. When you share with others, you might also find that managing the group finances will be a problem: some may not come up with the rent on time, or pay their full share of things such as the electricity, while food stored in the fridge may mysteriously disappear and everyone then looks at everyone else suspiciously. The telephone bills often seem to be higher than the total that people recorded when they made their calls. Keeping a kitty of money may help to cover such shared expenses as washing up liquid and washing powder.

When signing an agreement to rent a house or flat, you will need to put up a bond, often equal to four weeks' rent, which the landlord will lodge with the Rental Bond Authority. Before you move in, you will be asked to sign a list of house/flat contents and agree to a description of their condition. When you leave, at the end of your tenancy agreement or later, the place will be checked and if all is as you found it, you will get the bond back.

This means that you should either clean the place carefully, or hire a professional cleaner to do this for you. If you break things or do something like spilling paint on the rug then the replacement or cleaning will be stopped out of your bond. If your group leaves before the end of the agreement, then the bond is usually forfeited. The bond is held by an official authority, as in the past some unscrupulous landlords often kept the bond entirely. These days it is easier for you the tenant.

You will also be expected to pay a month's rent in advance. This means that you will need to pay a lot of money up front - usually two months' rent, consisting of one for the bond and one for the first month, as well as enough money for the basics that you will need to buy. If you cannot afford this, then consider whether you are ready to rent a house/unit yet. Naturally, if there are, say, three of you sharing, then you only need to find a third of the two months' rent yourself.

Whether taking lodgings or sharing a house, the area you choose to live in should have good access to the University and, unless you have a motorcar, ought to be near public transport. As Griffith is not on a railway line, and Brisbane has no Metro, this means a bus route. Try to find somewhere on a direct bus route. If you have to change buses to get to the University, the journey will take considerably more time. If you miss your normal bus change owing to a delayed first bus, you might miss lectures or important appointments.

In a shared house, someone has to cook. A cooking roster may work well, but too often you will find that one member of the group can only cook something like baked beans on toast, which, even ignoring certain antisocial side effects, rapidly tends to get very monotonous. Someone else may mysteriously have appointments or late classes on just those days of the week that they are supposed to do the cooking. If things are not going well in the group it often originates, or shows, in the field of domestic drudgery, and especially around the area of food. Arguments may arise or relationships get strained. Eventually a change in the composition of the group may be called for and you may have to ask someone to leave. However, it is always embarrassing telling someone to go on the grounds that the others are fed up with their behaviour. It is even worse if there is a factional split, with two groups in opposition. As a rule of thumb, the one whose name is on the lease is in the stronger position and wins any confrontation.

You might well need to buy a simple cookbook. This can significantly improve the quality of your life. Should you be new to cooking, make sure it has definitions of simple terms, like `saute', `parboil', or `casserole', and also tells you how to do the simple things. If you are a beginner you will need basic information from the book, such as that you should cut up potatoes before boiling them, in order to reduce the cooking time. Unless you have some experience, you should avoid any book with recipes that say things like `prepare the cabbage in the usual way...' as it will confuse rather than assist you. Later you can handle more advanced cookbooks. Books by authors that say `Cook until tender' without indicating if your are likely to be hanging around for twenty minutes or three hours should also be avoided. You can often get good cookbooks at reduced prices in the cut price book shops that specialise in the disposal of remainders, i.e., publishers' leftover

stocks. If you are new to Brisbane, you can ask someone where to find such a shop. You might note that such shops tend to have words like `Warehouse' or `Disposals' as part of their name. Many stores promoting their wares advertise in the Saturday edition of the Courier Mail. Garage sales sometimes produce good ones too, at very cheap prices also. For those newcomers to town, garage sales are where householders sell surplus goods they own, traditionally on a Saturday morning, piling them up in the garage and sometimes spilling over onto the lawn. Garage sales are advertised in their own column, also on a Saturday in the Courier Mail.

If you eat in the Refectory, note that a serving of french-fries on its own is not a particularly healthy meal - you should try to eat sensibly. For male students, in some cases this may mean deliberately eating more fruit and vegetables; for some female ones it sometimes might mean making sure that you eat enough or eat some balanced meals as well as all those simple salads. We are all subject to social pressures, even if we do not realise it. Lord Atlee in Britain once claimed that we are all prisoners of our environment. He was, I believe, wrong in putting it as strongly as `prisoners', but we are certainly victims of it. Many students seem to aim at ensuring they eat one decent cooked meal a day and get by for the other two. If you buy the cooked meal commercially, which is tempting if money allows, note that overcooking can destroy nutrients and home cooked is often better, despite the efforts of fast food chains to persuade you otherwise. A bar of chocolate gives you quick energy but should not be regarded as a proper meal substitute.

Note that it pays not to skimp on breakfast. If you get hungry by midmorning you might be tempted to buy expensive and not particularly healthy snacks to fill the void. You will probably find it difficult to concentrate in classes if there is a gnawing feeling in your stomach. Muesli is a good, healthy, quick, and easy way to start the day and provides a substantial and cheap meal. The commercial mueslis are often light on nice additives like dried fruit and nuts. Health food stores sell better Muesli than supermarkets. It is often worth paying a little more there to get a better Muesli, as on a per meal basis, the difference is small. If you buy a supermarket Muesli, you can and add things like sultanas, currants, chopped up dates, figs, and a variety of nuts, or whatever else you fancy. Adding a chopped-up apple or other fresh fruit to the dish at the actual meal is a particularly good thing to do and improves the food balance. The initial outlay may look large, but per meal the cost is actually low. Real Muesli enthusiasts buy all the raw materials like oats, and cracked wheat, and start the mixture from scratch, but beginning with a commercial Muesli, although a little more expensive, is easier and requires less up-front expenditure. You might find that such an augmented Muesli keeps you going longer before you get hungry and note that you might need to eat rather less of it than you think.

Remember that if you share a house or live on your own, you will need things like bedding, cutlery, a kettle, pots and pans, and cleaning materials at once and these can add up to a large sum. Do not forget you will also need an iron and, in particular, a reliable alarm clock. All mains-electric ones fail if there is even a brief power cut. Weekend markets are often a good source of cheap items, as are charitable `opportunity shops', and

garage sales. Paddy's Market in New Farm offers cheap items too, especially recycled clothing.

You should make a personal budget for expenses such as food, books, and transport as soon as possible and try to stick to it. If you find that you cannot do so and keep over running the budget, then try adjusting the balance between items. If you still cannot balance the budget, you may need to think about getting financial help from your parents, looking for part- time work, or taking out a student loan. You should have already investigated the AUSTUDY, details of which can be obtained from the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training or from the University. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can apply for ABSTUDY help, from the same department or from the Gummuri Centre. If you have to consider getting a part time job to keep you eating and enjoying life, you should be aware that they are often hard to find in the current recession with high rates of unemployment. When you are successful in the search and are offered a casual and part time work it may be at below standard rates of pay. Student loans are not popular with many as they will have to be repaid at some stage, but with a degree you have a better chance of earning a big enough salary to do this and it could be some years before you actually have to start repaying. You should check the current rules with the bank, as they may change from time to time.

TRANSPORT

`The car has become an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad and incomplete in the urban compound.'

(Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, p.7).

You will need to consider transport, especially if not living on campus. If you have a car, you might cut expenses by sharing rides and getting some money from those to whom you give a lift to go towards registration, insurance, petrol and maintenance. Motorcycles are much cheaper to run than motorcars but you are exposed to the elements, motorcycles are more dangerous, and you can carry less with you. Should you have no car or motorcycle then, unless living within walking distance, it means using the buses, cycling, or finding a lift. If using buses, obtain a copy of the University bus timetables, and any others you need, from the Brisbane City Council's Department of Transport office in the city. The timetables are supplied free. You will find that some buses to and from the University are very full and you have to stand, or even that you cannot get on and have to wait until the City Council sends another one along. The driver of the full bus informs the centre on his radio that there are still people waiting and another bus is despatched, but this process takes time. The Express buses are considerably faster than the normal ones if you are going into the city. You can either pay for each bus journey you make, or else purchase a bus pass. The pass is often slightly cheaper and is a lot more convenient than finding the money every day and paying the driver. Whether it is much cheaper, or

possibly even dearer, depends on how often you use the pass. You should take note of how often you typically use the bus and decide which is the cheapest way to pay in your particular case. In 1994 a student pass which allows unlimited travel by bus and ferry costs $399 a year, $199 a semester or $49 a month.

Cycling is cheap, rather energetic, especially in the humid heat of summer, and can be dangerous, given the way many Brisbane motorists drive. The exercise is however good for you. You must wear a safety helmet. If you bring a cycle in to the University, make sure it is securely chained up to something solid and nothing of value is left on it, especially if it can easily be removed.

Check the notice boards around the university if you are seeking, or offering, a lift. Those near the Refectory and Student Union may be productive, but do not ignore the boards in each Faculty. If you have your own car, make sure it is properly locked and nothing of obvious value is laying around on the seats. This includes parcels and briefcases, as casual thieves may think they contain something valuable and break into your vehicle, doing a lot of damage, to get something that is worth far less than the damage done. An extra lock, on the steering wheel or pedals is an added deterrent to car thieves. On all university campuses, car thieves are active.

LIVING CHEAPLY

`Economy is going without something you do want in case you should, some day, want something you probably won't want.'

(Anthony Hope, Dolly Dialogues, 1894, no. 12).

Try to save money wherever you can. Remember to turn off all lights in rooms or corridors that you are not using at the time. You will be surprised how high your electricity bills can be, and might equally be surprised how much you can reduce the size of the bill by such measures. Equally, only use the telephone if you really need to do so. Local calls in Brisbane are not charged by time, so that once connected you can keep talking at no extra cost. There are of course some commercial services that charge by the connect time and if you indulge in these the total cost can rapidly mount up. Interstate and international calls are always charged by time. Some government departments and private firms insist that before making a long distance telephone call, the person writes down the points they wish to make. This tends to keep the length of call down and also ensures that staff do not have to ring twice, having forgotten to say something the first time they rang. You could consider doing the same.

Try to cook for yourself whenever possible. Note that buying prepackaged food and prepared food is almost always more expensive than buying the raw materials and cooking for yourself. Eating out in the refectory or restaurants is an expensive way of

surviving, but it is convenient and makes a nice occasional treat. Bringing your own sandwiches or other food from where you live to eat at the University is always the cheapest way to eat lunch. If dieting, fruit such as an apple is cheaper if bought from stalls or supermarkets and brought in.

If you must send out for a pizza, it is not cheap and in addition there is usually a minimum charge. Any effort to get you to buy add-ons is best resisted if you do not have much money. The largest sizes of pizza are often cheaper per unit. If you buy a large one and cannot eat it all, wait until it is cold, then immediately wrap the remainder carefully and put it in the 'fridge. Some can stomach it cold the next day, but warming it up is better, although it does dry out a little.

Cooking offers scope for saving real money. When cooking a meal, consider cooking much more than you need and putting the surplus, separated in several small freezer bags, into the freezer. Squeeze out as much air as possible before sealing with the supplied twist-ties. You will find that it is quick and easy to warm up one of these extra meals after a few days have passed and you can face eating the same meal again. Cooking and freezing in this way saves you both time and money. If you are cooking in the oven, see if you can cook two meals at the same time and freeze one down. Let the meal get reasonably cool before putting it into the freezer. Be aware that leftovers can be recycled into tasty meals, so always be loath to throw food away. You can even plan to have leftovers, e.g., by boiling up more potatoes than you need for one meal, putting the surplus into the fridge wrapped in Gladwrap, then slicing and frying them up the next day - delicious! Keep all previously cooked food in the 'fridge, and do not keep food for more than a few days before eating it - it will go off.

If there are more than two of you sharing, you should consider buying a small joint of meat and roasting it. Roasting is a very easy way to cook - any cookbook should tell you the number of minutes needed to roast that quantity and kind of meat. One advantage is not only a tasty meal, but several cold meat meals, sandwiches to take for your University lunch, and possibly soup at the end. Another advantage with a roast is that you can put vegetables alongside the meat and roast them: potatoes, onions, pumpkin, carrots and parsnips are all good cooked that way. As a rule of thumb, if it grows in the ground (or on it like a pumpkin) it can be roasted successfully; if it grows in the air, it cannot. Potatoes and onions take around an hour, the others tend to take less, maybe 35 minutes. Always make soup of poultry by boiling up the carcass in a lot of water with a few vegetables like onions, leeks, carrots or whatever is around. A herb or two helps the flavour. Simmer it for maybe three hours and have either a delicious soup or a great stock to add to casseroles. Cheap cuts of meat normally casserole up nicely - the secret is to cook slowly at low heats and not to fry the bits too much before putting in the casserole.

Vegetarian meals can be very cheap indeed, especially if you like curried beans/peas and the like.

If trying to save money, you are better off avoiding fish as much as possible. It is

extremely expensive in Australia, relative to meats. You will find that liver, especially calves' liver that is the best, is cheap relative to other countries and any left over can be made into pate if you have a food processor. Kidneys too are a good buy, but not everyone likes offal, the word itself being a little off-putting.

With the refrigerator, try to open the door as little as possible in the hot weather. Decide what you want to take out before opening the door. One good way to waste money is to stand with the door open, looking around the shelves and wondering what you want to eat or drink. All that delicious cold air that spills over your legs has to be replaced and paid for. You are the one who pays. Similarly, do not place hot food in the 'fridge, where it will warm up the air that you will then pay to cool down again, but let the food cool first. If your 'fridge is a bit old, you might find that the door does not close as well as it once did. Try leaning on the door after you have closed it, as that often presses the door in and makes for a better seal that reduces the amount of electricity needed to keep the contents cool.

If you have a car, try not to use it to go out to buy just one thing or go to one place. Combining several jobs into one journey saves petrol. Petrol in Australia is half the price of Europe and some other countries, but still costs more than you wish to spend. Unless you are rich, which few students are, the habit some people have of driving round on Sundays just for the sake of it should be put in abeyance until you get a job or at least until you have more money. Similarly, consider where you are want to go - if you can walk it, why not do so? The exercise is good for you, and cheap shoes are much cheaper than petrol. If you need to buy one particular brand name good, or model, it is often cheaper, and much quicker, to telephone around, rather than drive from one side of the urban area to another, stopping and looking. `Let your fingers do the walking' is a clever advertising slogan that recommends using the telephone directory Yellow Pages to find the sort of firm you need, then ringing them first.

In winter, be pleased that you live in Brisbane rather than the interior, like Toowoomba, or the south. You need spend nothing on heating bills here, unless you choose. Put on another woollen sweater if cold or do a few exercises. Working in the library is a good option on cold evenings, as you get free heat and improve your learning at the same time.

If you are fortunate enough to have both bath and shower, remember that a shower uses far less water than a bath. Unless you enjoy cold baths, this means that you are paying more to heat up the water if you insist on regular baths. In a Brisbane summer, cold showers are not only more acceptable to many people, but hot ones can be positively unpleasant.

Do not buy new fashionable clothing unless you are determined to look good at all costs. It tends not to last too long, either because it is badly made of cheap material or because fashions change and at some point you may start to feel that you would not be seen dead in it again. Sex is nature's way of ensuring the survival of the species and if you are young, you may feel a compulsion to make an effort to look attractive. If so, you are in the grip of a superior force and can legitimately resist. You do not have to choose one

week to be in polka dots, the next week in stripes, nor be a dedicated follower of fashion. But they do not consider this to be an important matter. Dressing simply in sturdy clothing is cheaper, and you do not have to look like a fashion plate while studying. You might decide that you only need one decent outfit, for an annual dance or your graduation ceremony and perhaps what used to be referred to as `an interview suit' to impress when seeking a job before or soon after graduation. If you are only going to wear an outfit once, consider hiring something you like, it will be cheaper.

Unless you have a `thing' about wearing clothes that someone has worn before you, consider buying secondhand ones to save money. You need not worry about dirt or grime, as modern detergents and hot water clean extremely well. There are some excellent bargains to be found. Can I make one plea? You can and probably should cut down your spending on fripperies, inessentials and luxuries, but as a favour to me and to your fellow students, please do not cut out spending on a personal deodorant. TheBrisbane climate can be hot, torrid, and sweaty. So can we.

Remember that watching television is free, once you or your group has paid for a TV set, whereas going to the cinema/theatre costs money. There is no TV licence needed in Australia. Note that an evening in a pub can be very expensive, when one adds up the total spent, especially if there is a group playing and an admission fee is charged. Naturally, you should be studying as much as possible and only watching TV or socialising during your scheduled relaxation time (see below on making a personal timetable).

For many people, the simplest and most effective way of living cheaply and not spending money is not to buy things unless you truly need them. There are not many things like that. A very effective way is to stay out of shops. Other than the rare opportunity offered by modern technology to buy from telesellers, those unfortunate people who have to make a living by ringing up total strangers and trying to persuade them to buy something they neither want nor need, you will mostly spend money paying bills and in shops. The bills for electricity etc. keep arriving and must be paid but you can stay out of shops. If you are the sort of person who actually enjoys shopping, and may even have a regular day set aside to do it, do your best to curb your impulses and find something else to do. Once in a shop, you might find that you suddenly desperately need something that you did not even want before you came in and saw it. You might not even have known such a thing existed. Naturally there is a need for minimum survival shopping, bread, milk, vegetables and so on. Be honest. Look in your wardrobe and see just how many clothes you have and calculate how long you could last before having to buy something new in order to avoid freezing to death or comply with the laws of decency.

Equally, you can use the TV remote control to turn the volume way down on the adverts. Since these always sound as if the volume has been turned up, although the stations usually deny this and may say they merely enhance the treble, you are doing your bit against noise pollution as well as removing temptation. Developing the habit of `grazing', i.e., switching channels as soon as the adverts are on to see what it happening elsewhere, may also reduce your exposure to advertising. Marketing people hate grazers,

which suggests it may not be at all a bad practice. Never forget that there is an entire industry out there, full of intelligent and dedicated people whose sole job is to separate you from your money in a socially acceptable and legal way. You are on your own against these forces.

SETTLING IN

`Daily floggings will continue until staff morale improves.'

(Notice on a board in a Brisbane office).

It is quite normal to feel uncertain, insecure or plain scared on your arrival. Most also feel other emotions, especially excitement and exhilaration. Do not start to wonder if it will be too much for you and never think of dropping out just because you may feel a bit afraid. Few people really know what a university is or does before they go, and even fewer know in advance what is expected of them. This leads to many new students, especially in their first few days, feeling worried. Fear of the unknown is a common human condition and has, for instance, made both names and money for the makers of horror movies. The information contained here should help you to weather these early storms and hopefully will help to calm you down.

The immense freedom within a university and the lack of coercive authority of the high school also upsets some. Try not to let the taste of freedom get you down - you will survive, as generations of others have done before. Equally, do not let it go to your head and cause you to spend the entire first semester socialising rather than learning. You should see your time at university as an exciting and immense opportunity, as well as a challenge, something you will enjoy, as you grapple with and surmount problems. It is part of growing up to deal with uncertainty and learn from your experiences and mistakes. Remember that you are not alone and everyone around you faces the same dilemmas, however well they may hide their fears. Although the initial newness fades quickly, the whole of the first year is in some way new, and the excitement/confusion feelings may linger on at a diminishing rate. By the second year you will be an old hand, and probably staring at the new first year students as if they were a different species. You will undoubtedly feel a bit superior to them too, if you are anything like a typical student. Incidentally, when you get to second year, resist the temptation to slacken off. Now that you are completely at home and the end is not yet in sight (unlike for third years), some students rather revel in the freedom and their marks may suffer.

Your first day will probably be very busy, as you are enrolled and given information at what might appear to be a great rate. Friendly confusion often seems to abound. You will probably be lectured to by a variety of different people about lots of different things, some of which you will actually remember. Do not let the fact that you forget some of it and do not see the relevance of other bits get you down. Once through the Orientation

Week, university life is different and better.

It is important not to spend your first evening at university sitting alone in your room, probably feeling awful. This can be mega-depressing. During the first day, make sure you arrange to meet someone and do something, like drink coffee, or go to the University Club. There may something officially organised, like a dance or a film show. If there is, you should go to it, unless you have made private arrangements. You might find that you have made several new friends already, while standing in queues or sitting in lecture theatres waiting for something to happen. For your first evening, remember - get out there and enjoy!

Try to make friends in the first couple of weeks - each person you know tends to lead to an expansion and you will soon know lots of people. You will find a support-group of friends very helpful in the first few weeks. This is a great defence against feelings of isolation and insecurity. It may help if you join a club or two as this is a good quick way of making friends. There are numerous clubs and societies on campus, in many different areas, including, amongst others, bush walking, computing, Karate, tennis and weight lifting. It is important to get regular exercise, not only for your health's sake but also because you will feel more alert, which enables you to study better.

Some of the friends you make at university may be kept for a long time or even life, and some may prove useful to you in your subsequent career or travels around the world. Such self-interest is not the primary reason for having friends, but you should be aware of this possible payoff.

Spend time in your first few days finding out where the important things are. These include the library, the refectory, other places to eat, the shops, especially the book shop, and the bank, post office and credit union. Also examine the timetable on the notice board and copy down the bits that apply to you. You should work out where your lectures and workshops will be. Go and find the room physically so that you are not racing around searching at the last minute. Once you have been to a lecture it is easy to remember next week where the room is. Allow enough time to get there before the classes begin. All lectures, tutorials, seminars and workshops start on the half hour and last 50 minutes. Should you find a staff member who forgets or ignores this and tries to continue for a full hour, you are perfectly at liberty to get up and walk out. If enough do this, the lecturer usually takes the hint and starts to behave a bit more responsibly. You will often need the ten minutes break time to get to your next class or appointment without being late, especially if it is on the other side of the campus.

It is also useful to learn a few of the University acronyms early on so that you understand what is being said or which building to look for in order to find the particular room in which your tutorial or whatever is being held. `MAS' (`Em-ay-ess') stands for the School of Modern Asian Studies, and `IBR' (`Eye-bee-are') for the School of International Business Relations. Both these Schools make up the Faculty of Asian and International Studies (`AIS' pronounced `Ay-eye-ess'). Other useful ones include `Hum' which stands for Humanities or the Humanities building, `Admin.' which rather confusingly is used for

both the Faculty of Administration (an academic body) and the central administration of the University, and `IT' (`Eye-tee') for Information Technology.

It is particularly useful to get hold of the latest Undergraduate Studies Handbook of the University and read the General Information section carefully - it will answer many of your questions, including some you probably did not even know you had, and help to ease your passage into this new and exciting life at university.

Although it may seem a bit strange at first, it does not take most people long to settle down and adjust to university life. The first week or two can seem very strange, but you will find that you rapidly start going to lectures and tutorials so regularly that you establish a familiar routine. The settling in process is often made easier if in the early lectures you are given instructions about what you are supposed to do, and also how and when to do it. You will also probably receive one or more hand outs in the early lectures that tell you more about that particular subject.

2 THE UNIVERSITY

Myself when young did eagerly frequentDoctor and Saint, and heard great argumentAbout it and about: but evermoreCame out by the same Door as in I went

(Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, xxvii).

What does a university actually do? A university does two things: it pushes back the frontiers of knowledge (research) and passes on to the next generation what we know or think we know (teaching). The academic staff do both these things. They also run the place, along with the administrative staff, so that there is much administrative work to be done. Do not assume that the four hours or whatever you see a staff member teaching you is all they do - they are likely to be teaching in several other subjects, as well as involved in various administrative duties and undertaking research. If you cannot find them in their office, they will probably not be lounging on a beach somewhere.

You might be baffled by the titles of some of the academics about the university. In simple terms, there are only two groups of titles. The first refers to their job level. Here you will find, in ascending order, Teaching Fellows, Senior Teaching Fellows, Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, Assistant Professors (once called Readers), and Professors. The higher up, the more they are paid and the more responsibility they have.

The second group refers to their title. All academics are either Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss or else Doctor. The latter have gained their Ph.D. whereas the former have not. You cannot assume that everyone without a Ph.D. is not as good as those with one. In some cases it may not be particularly appropriate, e.g., for many language teachers. In other cases it is merely the workings of supply and demand. In this case there is such a shortage of people able and willing to teach that topic in universities and so much money to be made outside academia, that few people bother to spend their time working for a Ph.D. Skills

that are relatively scarce in society, such as Marketing, Accounting and high level medicine, often fall into this group. A final group consists of academics still studying for their Ph.D., some with immense ability, but who are still too young to have gained the doctorate or else came in late to the profession. If someone is both a Professor and has a doctorate, it is usual to address them as `Professor' rather than `Doctor'. In thisuniversity, but not in all, it is quite common to be asked to address the staff member by their given name rather than title.

You might as well be told now that academics are much better educated than average, are somewhat more intelligent, but are not particularly more good or moral than anyone else. In other words, they are prone to the same weaknesses as normal human beings; they can be as intolerant, jealous, envious and back-stabbing as the next person. Indeed, since some of us have more time on our hands than many workers in what we might incorrectly but popularly call the real world, we have the time to engage in petty politicking if we so desire. Some do.

How is the university organised? All universities tend to have a similar structure, although they may use different names for certain jobs. There is an academic side, consisting of the people just mentioned above. At the top is the Vice-Chancellor (VC) who is the most important person in the university and in a sense it is `his/her' university. In the USA he/she may be called the President. The academic side does the actual teaching and research, although few VCs have much time for anything but running the place, which includes both administration and politics, the latter especially outside the university. The academic side also formulates the policy of the university and determines the rules.

The other side of the university is the administration. This side actually runs the university in the administrative sense, follows the rules and ensures that what should be done is done. Such things as running the Refectory, looking after the grounds and buildings, organising the parking, and paying the staff all fall within the area of responsibility of the administration. At the top is the Registrar (called Bursar in some colleges or universities).

If you have an academic problem, you should go to see one of the academic staff. If you have an administrative problem, you go to the administration. For most students, the Faculty Office is the immediate contact point with the administration. If you change your address, do remember to tell the Office about it. Should the University wish to make contact with you, it is in your interest to see that they can.All universities are divided into smaller groups, often Faculties (which group similar disciplines or subjects into one area) and Departments (one for each discipline). Griffith University, like many modern ones, is divided first into several Faculties and then into Schools (see figure 1). As an example, as well as other Faculties we have the Faculties of Asian and International Studies, Science, and Humanities each of which undertakes the work appropriate to its name. Each Faculty has a Dean as its head. There are usually one or two Deputy Deans to help with the running of the Faculty. Within the Faculty there may be one or more Schools (e.g., Modern Asian Studies), which specialise in some area covered by the Faculty. The

leader of each School is called the Head of the School. Each part of the First Year, such as Economics, and History/Politics, has a Convener. Every subject that you will study in the University has its own Convener, who is responsible for what goes on. If you have a problem of not understanding a bit of a lecture, the person to approach first is the person who delivered that lecture. If you still have problems, see a different member of staff who is in that discipline. If however you have a more general problem, you might choose to approach the lecturer you know or failing help there you can go to the Convener. If that fails, there is the Head of School, and above that the Dean. The Dean tends only to get involved if the problem is really serious.

Figure 0 The Organisation of Griffith University

The School and Faculty are the levels that probably matter most for things that will concern you. You are actually a member of a Faculty, but may take most of your subjects from one particular school. You are free to choose any subjects within a Faculty that would not be either silly or specifically precluded. You cannot for example do the First year in two Schools in a Faculty and count this as your first two years work. There may also be prerequisite subjects demanded, for instance you cannot study `Global Marketing' in the School of International Business Relations until you have successfully completed `International Business Systems'. The current Undergraduate Studies Handbook explains carefully all your subject choices and any limitations.

The University is run using a large number of committees that have a variety of functions including making suggestions on university policy concerning matters within their jurisdiction, all under the rules and guidelines established by the University Council. This is the top ruling body, somewhat like a Parliament, which meets once a month and approves policy. The VC is the Chief Executive Officer who actually runs and is ultimately responsible for everything, both academic and administrative. The Registrar is the most senior member on the administration side, and he is responsible for the administration of the University but has no responsibility for academic matters.

LECTURES, WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS

Johnson: I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor.Boswell: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.Johnson: No, Sir; stark insensibility

(Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol.i, p.60, Nov. 1728).

Lectures are for staff to pass on information in an efficient way to you. At this University you may ask questions by raising your hand. You should not hesitate to do this if there is something that you do not understand. Usually this is a question of grappling with a new concept, but occasionally it is the accent of the staff member concerned. In the latter case, you will normally `tune-in' to the accent in a couple of lectures. Most staff do not mind questions, indeed they are only to pleased not to press on blindly, leaving the group in ignorance. If after a repeated explanation you still have trouble with understanding, it is often better not to persist. It often works better if you wait until the end of the lecture and raise it again or go and see the staff member during their office hours. In this way, you will get a one-to-one explanation and the lecturer will not be worrying that he/she will not be able to get through the planned material if more time is spent on that particular part.

If you have come straight from school, you may have picked up some bad habits there. One is giggling and talking in lectures. It is easy to slip into the habit of doing this, but it is not acceptable conduct in a university lecture theatre. It distracts the other students terribly and is off-putting for the lecturer. Remember, you do not have to be in the lecture theatre, so if you want to talk, either stay away or simply get up and leave. By doing so, you are harming your own prospects but at least you are not damaging those of other people.

You should not just turn up for the lecture because it is scheduled, but try to psych yourself up for it and raise the level of your interest in the topic being covered. You are there to listen and learn, not just put in an appearance. You can start early, say the evening before, and read the part of the text book devoted to the issue, or discuss it with friends, try to explain it to them, and argue about the content if needed. On the way to the lecture you can turn the issue over in your mind. When you sit down, after organising your pen, note pad etc. comfortably, you can try to recall the main points of last night's reading on today's lecture topic. All such efforts raise your level of interest, increase your concentration, and help you to understand the lecture at the time, while remembering more of it later.

Workshops are where you do something yourself, either alone or in a group. You will be told what to do and left to do it, under supervision of a staff member. The approach of workshops varies a lot, so in some you may do a quiz, in another undertake role playing, have small group discussions or some other activity. Before attending it is vital that you read any set material, as you can only make a contribution from a position of knowledge. If you are not ready to discuss an issue because you have not read the material, you are not entirely wasting your time by attending, but you are wasting perhaps ninety per cent of it. There is not much to be gained by the group from pooling the ignorance of the members. If workshops or small groups are to work really effectively and be enjoyable, the members must put in prior effort. You will find ultimately that you tend to get out roughly what you put in to workshops. If you turn up not having read anything and/or sit quietly and not participating, you will get less from them than if you read up beforehand, know something about the topic, and then present your views and argue cogently, listening to the comments of others.

Do not expect to have the textbook chapter regurgitated to you as a lecture. You are not led by the hand through each chapter at University but are expected to read through it and learn it yourself. The lectures may cover some of the basics, expand on them and might add new things. The lectures are unlikely to be identical with the textbooks and may criticise part of them. Nor are they likely to go through the content of the textbook in the same chapter order, unless they think it cannot be improved upon.

Tutorials will usually have a paper delivered by a student on a prearranged topic. In a similar way to workshops, you benefit greatly from doing the set reading before the day of the tutorial/seminar at which someone else is presenting a paper. If you merely turn up on the day and trust to your wits, you are probably being brave and just might be going in to battle unarmed. While you read the material in advance, you will find it helpful to jot down on a piece of paper any thoughts that come into your mind and any criticisms you can think of. If the reading is from a book you own, or you have a copy of the article etc., then you can highlight or mark if it helps. Otherwise, it pays to take notes of the main ideas or thoughts. You can then use your notes and jotted ideas to help you understand the orally presented paper, remember the main points, and ask questions or make points during the discussion period after the paper has been presented.

Generally, tutorials and seminars work far better if the paper is read aloud without interruption, then questions are asked at the end and the points discussed. If interruptions are allowed to the paper, commonly the questions asked at that point will be answered later in the paper. This means the interruption was a total waste of time, and also destroyed the flow of the paper and the line of argument. When a thought occurs to you while listening to the paper, jot it down and ask at the end, assuming it has not been answered in the meantime.

You should try to join in the discussion at tutorials and seminars, and the notes you made before and during the session will help to give you both confidence and ammunition. Do not be afraid that you will make mistakes and people will laugh at you. Many ideas that may have seemed idiosyncratic or incorrect can resurface subsequently and become respectable. If you have an opinion or suggestion, state it. This helps to encourage diversity and debate, which makes the session more interesting for all. In any case, if you are going to make a mistake, or cling to theories or opinions long discredited, the seminar or tutorial is a good place to air them and find this out. This is how you learn. In addition, if done here, there is no penalty, whereas in the examination room such a mistake may cost you marks. When making your points, remember that you should criticise a view or an idea, not the person who made it. It is easy to hurt someone's feelings without meaning to.

It is important to attend tutorials and workshops, and you should not avoid going because the topic looks boring or perhaps of little relevance to your immediate needs. Under these circumstances it may be tempting to absent yourself, especially if you are starting to fall behind and an assignment is due in shortly. Bear in mind that what you are supposed to do is the result of much discussion and planning, and there is a reason for it, even if

this is not instantly obvious to you. Part of the first year's task is to give you a basis for proceeding to second year and doing well there. It is not only the actual hard information you get in the first year that matters. The process of the workshop, `learning by doing', is also part of what you need. Some of what you do, particularly in the first year, may also be aimed at preparation for subsequent years and may not seem to you an obviously vital part of the First year. It is still important for you to go and absorb both the process and the information; both will stand you in good stead later.

THE LIBRARY

`Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.'

(Dr. Johnson, Boswell's Life of Johnson, p.365, 18 April, 1775).

Use the University library - learn how to find information and to look up references in the catalogue. You should learn how to access the computer and search for information by subject, author, and title. You also need to discover where the call-numbers are physically located in the library. There is a mass of information waiting for you, but it will not come to you, you have to go to it. It can be a fairly daunting prospect at first. The University provides an introduction to library use - you should attend this and make careful notes.

The Library contains books and periodicals, but also has few other things worth knowing about. The government publications' section can prove valuable and there are various data basis available for electronic search. The Business Periodicals on Disc programme allows you to read articles, and if you wish you can print up any of interest (at a price). This is often a good place to find information that is not yet in textbooks, and sometimes never will be.

Do not ignore the reference section either, which contains masses of information. You might find it useful to make a note of a few shelf call numbers of interest to your subjects, so that you can check easily in the future if seeking information.

When in the library, keep silent and allow others to study in peace.

Do not mark or write in library books, it is annoying to others. You can, and many argue should, write in your own books. Do not hide books in obscure places for your own use and please do not steal them or tear out chapters or articles from books and journals. This is not only very antisocial, but the punishments are severe. Try to get your library books back on time - you can renew by telephone. If you are late, you accumulate points and eventually will be banned from borrowing books or fined. Until you pay off the fines,

you cannot receive a degree. It helps if you write in your diary or wall calendar when they are due back. You can also keep them physically separate on the shelf from books you own, so that you do not `lose' a book and not realise it is a library book and overdue.

Remember that there are other libraries in Brisbane, including not only public lending libraries, but also the State Reference Library. These can sometimes provide an alternate source of information. It is not normally worth wasting time going round several public libraries to see what is on offer, but it may be worth checking out the nearest one to where you live. The University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology both have excellent libraries and you can request books on the Inter Campus Loan system. Most of your main books and journals should be in Griffith University Library and that is the one that you will probably use the most.

One of the most useful skills you can learn at university is how to use a library to your best advantage. After you have graduated and found a job, it is probable that many of you will have to find information quickly for a boss, or write a report on something you know little or nothing about when you are given the task. If you can get into a library and pull out masses of relevant and recent information quickly, this will be of great advantage to you. You will also have your own interests in life, be it surfboard designing or bee-keeping, and again there is usually a lot more information available than you would think, if you know where and how to look. It is a total waste of time to reinvent the wheel, and others may even suffer if you try. The highly intelligent and famous Germaine Greer recounted in a newspaper article how she started to keep chickens in her rural English garden and how they fought and suffered quite badly. She did not know what to do. It was clear that she had not done sufficient, if any, homework, as letters telling her what seemed to be standard information on how to avoid the problems immediately came in. The message is clear: you can look up much of the information you will need and do not need to start experimenting all over again.

3 YOUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSITY

Some of the world's greatest thinkers have asked the question `why am I here?' often without reaching a simple answer. It ain't easy but we still ask.

It is most important to think about your purpose in coming to university and then organise yourself to achieve it. Do you just want a degree of some kind and not fail? Do you want to achieve the best quality degree you can? Do you want to learn a lot about one thing in which you have a strong interest? Do you have a particular career in mind that you wish to study for? Do you simply want a better job and feel a degree will open up doors? Do you wish to broaden your mind and improve your personal quality as a human being? Do you seek intellectual stimulation and enjoyment? Does the life of a student merely sound attractive to you? Are you returning to study after some years in

the work force because you need a challenge, or can now afford to study? Are you here because your parents, family or friends think it is a good idea? Are you trying to postpone decisions about what to do with your life? The answer to such questions may affect your allocation of time between study and leisure, and help you to decide what things to study in more depth.

Self discovery and development are an important part of university, especially for those straight from school. Mind-widening is one great benefit from attending university, in addition to gaining a degree.

You have come to learn not just to be taught - there is a clear difference - although we do try hard to teach you well and to help and guide you in other ways. In less politically correct times, Galileo summed this up as `You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself'. `Being taught' is something that happened to you at school and is rather a passive experience, where you sit and listen, take notes, and memorize them later. Learning is what you do in higher education and perhaps for the rest of your life. It is in fact very hard not to keep learning for the rest of your life, although it may not seem like learning at the time. Learning is a much more active experience than being taught and is something you must do for yourself, for no one can do it for you. You learn in many ways, one of which is by other people teaching you. The process of learning at the university level involves you going out and looking things up in the library, discovering information, reading for yourself and thinking about what you are reading. It also includes discussing and arguing with other students. That is one reason why you will spend perhaps twelve hours a week in formal contact. You are supposed to be learning for yourself and the time is made available for you to do this. You get guidance in your learning of course, including subject handouts, reading or booklists, probably with chapter references, and the like.

In the end it is up to you. You must learn for yourself, using what the staff say, what the other students contribute, and what you read in the library all as a basis for your greater understanding and improved capacity for thought. Thinking, as opposed to regurgitating views you have read or been told, is not as easy as one might think and you might find it very tiring at first.

Do ask if you do not understand something. At this university, unlike most of the older and traditional ones, the staff expect you to interrupt and ask questions in lectures. If you keep quiet they will assume you are following what is being said. Once you do not understand one thing, it might be impossible for you to understand the next step. If you have trouble with a concept, go and see a staff member in their office Hours. This is the period when they guarantee to be in their rooms and available to answer questions. You do not need to make an appointment, you just turn up and knock on the door. If you could not understand a point in a lecture see the person who gave the lecture, take your notes and ask them about the point. If the problem concerns something you read in the textbook or in an article, take the book etc. with you. It helps if you write down something about the difficulty or the workings that you tried to do, as a staff member can more easily see where your problem lies. If you turn up with the statement `I cannot

understand any of it', it is hard to help you, as you have made too broad a statement and there are no pointers for the staff member to consider. Such a broad statement often merits the response `Go off and think about it some more, then come back', although most staff are probably too kind to say this and you may not be told this often.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU?

Great Expectations.

(Title of a book by Charles Dickens).

What is expected of you at university? First you are exposed to learning in several ways. You are expected to attend lectures and take notes. You will also go to seminars (possibly called a tutorial) where you will listen to a paper given by a student (including you eventually) and make notes of anything that seems of particular importance or interest to you, then discuss the paper and its contents. A tutorial should really refer to a staff member talking to one or two students privately, but the term is often used to refer to what is in fact a seminar where a paper is read out in a room full of students and a discussion is lead by a staff member. In AIS, but not in all Faculties, you will also go to workshops where you do whatever is set in advance or you are instructed at the time. You will participate in an appropriate fashion, e.g., discuss a topic in small groups, argue a case for some proposition, or do a quiz and discuss the answers. Whatever you have to do will be explained to you fully. Other Faculties have their own versions of practical sessions called by different names, such as laboratory sessions or field trips.

Second, you will prepare assignments. You will give tutorial papers, where you are assigned a topic that you prepare and if it is in the form of a question, answer. You can write it out in full and read it out loud, or work from notes. The former is more common and easier to do. The latter way is harder, but it is good practice for later life, when you may have to talk to notes. The handout you receive for the subject may tell you which way it should be done in that subject. Remember, if you have a free choice, writing it out in full is easier, especially in the early days. Expect to have to answer questions about the paper you gave and perhaps face criticisms of your expressed views by your fellow students and the staff member.

In some subjects, you will also write semester essays. The title, expected length and date of submission will be given to you. Sometimes you may choose your own title, after discussion with the staff member concerned. Examinations will also appear, usually once a semester in each subject, although mid- semester exams are also possible. The proportion of marks for each assignment that add up to the total for the subject should be communicated to you at the start of the subject, probably in a handout.

For the assignments you will receive a grade, as follows:

Fail = 1 - 49 per cent (First Year)Pass conceded = 48 - 49 per cent (2nd-3rd Years)Pass = 50 - 64 per centCredit = 65 - 74 per centDistinction = 75 - 84 per centHigh Distinction = 85 - 100 per cent

You are here to get a degree, but what does this mean? An ordinary degree is made up of 240 credit points, with 80 achieved in each year for three years. Each semester you do four subjects each worth eighty credit points. After the First Year, should you fail a subject or two, you can apply for permission to carry an overload and do five subjects in a semester. Unless you are a strong student that is frequently a bad idea however. Just think - you got in the mess by not being able to pass four subjects in one semester, so deliberately undertaking five can be expected to be very difficult. If you fail a subject, it is often better to take another semester at the end, and do the degree over three-and-a-half years instead. This usually gets you better results.

Above the level of the ordinary degree stands the Honours Degree. In Australia this usually takes up a fourth year and is started only after you have gained the normal degree. Only a small minority of students goes on to do Honours and there are rules about entry standards to ensure only those better than average are allowed to try. The Honours Programme generally consists of course work and a thesis, roughly half and half in importance. When the course work is completed at the end of the first semester, you normally start on the thesis that takes up the second half of the year. In practical terms, however, work on the thesis must be begun in the first semester also. After submission the thesis is marked.

Your overall result, based on both the course work and thesis, will be one of the following:

First class Honours (`a First')Upper second class Honours (`a Two-one')Lower second class Honours (`a Two-two')PassFail

Few people ever fail (the students are preselected and generally are among the best), and a pass is not worth achieving as it is not above the ordinary degree level. Most of the academics that you see about the university attained a First or Two-one.

Above the Honours degree stands the Masters (MA). This can be done either entirely by dissertation (fairly rare) or by course work plus a shorter dissertation. The former can take some years; the latter way often takes one year full-time or two years on a part-time basis. You either pass or fail; there are no grades. Entry is normally restricted to those with Honours (First or 2/1 only usually) so even fewer do this degree.

There are three universities in the Western world that are still allowed to sell Masters degrees for money. These are Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England, and Trinity College, Dublin. This is remnant of their feudal past that no one has yet managed to eliminate. Unfortunately, you will not be allowed to purchase one, as the applicant has to obtain an undergraduate degree at one or other of the three Universities before being allowed to buy his/her Masters. If you come across anyone with a degree MA (Cantab.) or MA (Oxon) it merely means that they did an undergraduate degree in one of the three places, then subsequently they had a small sum of money with which to purchase a Masters degree and felt the status gained worthwhile. These three universities also give `proper' Masters degrees, which are earned in the normal way, and given a different name.

The final degree available for most people is the Ph.D. which is also known as a doctorate, as it allows the holder to call him/herself `Doctor'. A Ph.D. is mainly done by extended dissertation that must contain a significant amount of original work and be a significant addition to knowledge. There may also be some course work required, especially in the USA. A Ph.D. usually takes at least four years (there is a minimum time requirement in most universities of perhaps three years) and some take up to around ten years to obtain. You either pass or fail; there are no grades. Entry is often, but not always, restricted to those with a Masters or at least a first class Honours degree. Most academics have a doctorate or are studying for one. In many disciplines they need to obtain their Ph.D. to get employment.

Some very few scientists are awarded an even higher degree called a Doctor of Science. This significant honour is awarded as a result of their published work and the name they have earned in their field and does not require any examination.

For most people, the first degree is sufficient. To an extent it is used by employers as a sort of sieve, through which the brighter and better people have gone, and thereby demonstrated that they are very employable. For a few of the better jobs, notably the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, an Honours degree is usually, although not inevitably, required. Few employers seem to take much notice of post graduate degrees, except for teaching in higher education, research and development jobs, and some posts in science and technology. In the more extreme cases in private industry and commerce, a higher qualification might even count against you. This attitude is not generally popular among academics, who often value education for its own sake, but surveys have shown it exists. With a steady drift upward over time in the qualifications deemed necessary for any particular job, it is possible that the negative attitude of some employers will eventually change.

MOTIVATION, TIME USE AND SELF-ORGANIZATION

`Nothing puzzles me more than time and space.'

(Charles Lamb, Letter to Thomas Manning, 2 Jan. 1810).

A strong motivation is really needed to learn and succeed at anything. Recall you were earlier advised to think carefully about your purpose in coming to university. This was suggested to assist you to strengthen and develop your motivation and to help you to organise yourself in the most beneficial way.

Think about why you want to be here and keep remembering what main aim you are trying to achieve and why this is important to you. It will help you to learn and succeed generally. It just might also help you to buckle down and read your notes or the textbook when you should do this but are tempted to go out, or watch TV. Mental work is hard and the mind is very clever at throwing up feelings and suggestions to you so that it can avoid working, especially going through the agony of thought. It might, for example, suggest that making coffee and talking would be nice, or a beer, or ringing up a friend.... The brain is clever at devising such ruses to avoid work. A strong motivation can help to keep you studying and succeeding.

Note that worry and pressure are not in themselves bad things. They can cause you to work harder and concentrate more and hence can be beneficial. The trick is to make use of them as a positive thing and harness them to work for you in this way. Too much worry and pressure can be bad, and cause you to mope about or get depressed, rather than study harder or longer. If you are unlucky enough to find this fits you, first try to harness them to work for you. If this does not work, you can talk to the people in the medical centre or seek spiritual help from some religious person. Yoga is often beneficial in reducing stress, as is meditation. When you are stressed out, whatever helps you to reduce your stress level is good, be it a hard game of squash or bush-walking one day a week.

Oganisation and self discipline are both needed. If you have not developed these capacities before - start to do it now! With all the free time at your disposal you will often face a choice between work and play - choose work whenever you can. Forcing yourself to start is often the hardest part - once you are in to the reading and note-taking or whatever, it tends to seem interesting, rewarding and generally worthwhile. It is easyto sit around thinking `I should be working' but not actually doing so. Should you notice that you are falling into this habit, then do something at once. You can just open your textbook at the place you last marked, or read over your last lecture notes to get yourself going. Naturally if you have an assignment due shortly, then that is more likely to be a profitable thing to work on. The fear of deadlines can be put to good use.

You need to make lists and draw up a personal timetable to allocate your time in the most productive way. I suggest you make a standard weekly timetable, divided into seven days, and then into hours. As we work on the half-hour, you will find it more useful to make it on the half hour, e.g., 8.30 - 9.30 a.m. is better than 8 - 9 a.m.. Fill this in, with the set time for lectures, workshops and tutorials you must go to, perhaps on one colour,

and what topic or subject you will study in the blanks, in a different colour. Run it into the evenings and weekends too, as these are prime study time. At the start, allocate equal time per subject and only adjust this when you need, e.g., if you find you are falling behind in one subject you should increase your time allocation to it. This will help to prevent you from spending most of your time on the subject you like the best and ignoring your weaker subjects. If your scheduled study and learning time, including lectures etc., does not add up to at least 40 hours a week, you are probably not working hard enough. Many people in business work longer than this.

As part of time allocation, have a good look at the assessment weighting system. There was a time when your final results depended entirely upon your examination results. People then studied old examination papers and `spotted' topics, allocating more time to those areas that appeared more often on the exam papers. These days many universities have a system of continuous assessment plus examinations. The weighting of each part of your work should affect your choice of where to place emphasis. If one semester essay is worth half the total marks, it makes sense to put more effort into that essay; some advocate putting about half your effort into the essay in such a case. Likewise, if `participation' is given a high weighting in seminar performance by non paper givers, then it pays you to read the material even more carefully beforehand, think of questions and develop your views, then express them at the seminar. You should be doing work along those lines in any case, of course, if you want to develop yourself and gain as much as possible from your three years' attendance.

Carry your timetable always - photocopy it and put a copy in front of your loose-leaf binder for your daily notes. Refer to it constantly as a check on where you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to be doing. In addition, you can make a separate list of things to do each day, including lectures to attend, appointments to keep and people to see. If you make this long and thin, you can fold it and easily carry it about in an accessible pocket. You should do this and refer to it often. As soon as you have finished a task, such as attending a lecture, make sure you cross it off and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction this should give you. This crossing off and gaining enjoyment practice can help to increase your motivation to work and to both start and finish tasks. Most managers and many academics do this as a basic way of surviving the day. Be prepared to put up with a bit of gentle teasing at first, as less-organised people are sometimes inclined to jeer at those doing a better job. This may be because it is easier for them than changing their poor habits and working harder, or they may unconsciously hope to reduce you to their level that means they can carry on not trying quite so hard. It is best to ignore any such behaviour and put on a quiet smile.

You may find a personal diary useful, or else a calendar, with dates clearly marked for assignments due, when to start writing them. You might find the bank at the university or some other institution gives away a free calendar that you can use. An annual plan of what you have to do and when can help you to organise better, so that you have adequate reading and writing times for projects, semester essays and the like. Making such a plan is also useful after you graduate and start work, as many jobs require predetermined tasks to be achieved at certain times over the year. Familiarity with making and working with

an annual plan may come in useful later. It also gives you something to discuss at interviews if there is a seasonal rhythm to the post for which you are applying.

Note that the University schedules `student vacations' rather than `holidays'. The vacation time not only allows you to relax, it also provides time for reading and study. You should use at least part of the vacation for such things and it might help to make a rough timetable for the way you will use the vacation.

It is your own responsibility to organise yourself and your life - what you study, when you study it, how you study and so on. You should be flexible in this and be prepared to redo your timetable or schedule in the light of experience. Do not just drop scheduling yourself completely, but alter the schedule itself if it proves unsatisfactory.

FRIENDS AND SUPPORT GROUPS

You will become a member of several different groups, such as one or more social ones, perhaps a political one, as well as more formal university ones such as tutorials and workshops. It is often useful to get together with a few students you like and form a small study group to discuss the topic covered in the lecture, or the contents of an article or book chapter. This could be very informal and individual members might meet when convenient, or it could have a regular meeting, say after the lectures. Aim first to ascertain what the main points were, then you might go on to analyse and discuss them. The group size is up to you but between two to six people might work well; try it and see. If you find one other person works well for you, try to get and retain a `study buddy' - although you might find it useful to have one or two different ones, e.g., one for language, one for history and so forth.

It may help to keep the whole thing quite informal, but you will probably find it works better if you have a group leader for each session. It is a good idea to rotate the leadership for several reasons. This means everyone gets a turn and learns something about group dynamics, leadership and the like, which is a skill that employers like to see. It might make a small entry on your curriculum vitae (resumé) or you might usefully drop it in at the interview. It also stops one person dominating too much, which bores everyone else, so that the group starts to disintegrate. In addition, it exposes each member to the possibility of a different management/leadership style that is a useful learning experience. The group leader should have a rough `agenda' which should not frighten everyone off. It is merely a list of what the group might do and perhaps an idea of how to do it. Some things are better done by groups than individuals, e.g., searching one or more libraries for information about a large topic; `brainstorming' or tossing ideas about concerning what matters, what is involved, how a topic can be approached, how important different components of the question are; or going over the days lectures and examining and explaining the contents out loud to the group.

One thing to remember is that cooperation gains you more in group work than does competition. If you share an idea with the group, having to explain it makes you much more confident about it, and you will find it easier to remember in the future. You do not lose because the group gains access. You will however gain as you hear about their ideas. You might even find you have to modify, or maybe abandon the idea, if good comments and criticisms are made. Group work is not `a zero sum game' that is to say, there is no fixed total to be shared out, so that if one person gets more, another must get less. Group work expands the game, so that each individual can get more of an enlarged total sum of knowledge.

When working with one study buddy, you could read the same section of the text book, or journal article, note it, then meet and from memory tell each other the main points of the passage. Then check your notes and tell each other again. Modify your notes if you missed something important when you read the passage. Take a coffee break and tell each other again. Then swap criticisms and comments that you felt about the passage, see if it relates to some other part of the subject or to some other subject even. Write down whatever you get from this bull session and file it away properly. You will certainly know a lot more about the topic as a result of all this and you should also remember much of it easily later on.

Note that if you come straight from school with a few others you will find you are automatically part of a social group. It might be the nucleus of a study group, but you might find that there are more compatible people at university for this. Not everyone from school will be as interested in the different parts of the subject as you are. The choice of study group members is a personal thing and it is up to you to decide with whom you can best discuss intellectual matters. The ready-made group from school is often useful to help you settle in and not feel lonely. You should not automatically accept that you must stay with that one set of friends however; there are many other interesting people to meet at university and you should take advantage of the opportunity.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

You may never encounter sexual harassment, and if so you have no problems. You may however become a victim of it. You, like any other human being, are likely to receive sexual approaches now and then, indeed the human species continues as a result of this. If someone approaches you and you are not interested, you should say no and make it clear you mean it. This whole area is currently one of confusion and difficult interpretation, but in my view someone suggesting once that you are handsome, beautiful or sexy and making it clear that they would like to sleep with you is not harassment. It is merely an approach. Harassment is more serious and usually involves repetition, although a continuation of an unwanted approach, after you have indicated no interest, may also constitute harassment. If an approach is accompanied by threats of some kind,

it definitely is harassment. Similarly, sexual innuendo, smutty jokes, or demeaning comments mostly, some believe always, constitute harassment. If you are physically patted, pinched or touched you may also be being harassed, and probably are.

Such behaviour is unacceptable and you need not put up with it. After saying `no' or making it clear that you find such jokes or behaviour offensive, if the offender does not stop his or her unwanted approaches, you can get help. In every Faculty there is a member of staff, known as a Sexual Harassment Contact Officer, whose job it is to listen and advise. There should be a list of names on a board, but is you cannot find it, then ask in the Faculty Office for the name of the person who can advise you about sexual harassment and go and see them. If you are concerned but unsure if you are being harassed, then it is wise to see the designated person and at least discuss the issue and get some advice. Remember that it is not only females that can be harassed, nor will the harasser necessarily be a member of the opposite sex.

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS

A problem shared is a problem halved.(Traditional saying).

Other than sexual harassment, it is possible that you will face a problem on occasion. What should you do? If the problem is that you have been lazy and not worked, the answer is entirely in your own hands - buckle down now and start to work. If you find you are falling behind in one part of the subject, you should increase your hours devotedto studying that part. If have trouble keeping up with the whole subject, you can try to study more efficiently and increase your total hours of study. There are many other problems that you might face, ranging from financial to drugs, via emotional and as many wayside stops as human ingenuity can devise. It seems to be part of the human condition that the closer you are to a problem, the harder it is to put it into perspective and many relatively trivial problems can loom far too large in the mind andmaybe even appear overwhelming.

When you have a problem, it often helps to talk it over with someone else. Mature students might have a partner with whom they can discuss things, but if straight from school it can be harder. While in your teen years, it is often not easy to talk to one's parents and you may well think they do not understand. This might indeed be true. Often, however, it is part of nature's way of ensuring you grow up, cease to rely on your parents for support, and learn to make your way in life as an independent adult. While it is the first time you have gone through the process, the human race has done it for a long time, more or less successfully in most cases. In the meantime, you have a problem and still need to talk to someone. If you have a partner with whom you can discuss, then that might be a start. A member of staff may also be able to help. Try approaching one of the lecturers you see regularly during their office hours and talk to them. You need not feel

embarrassed - they do not really know you as you are one of several hundred students in the first year and they are unlikely to be judgmental. They might be able to put you on to someone who is more a specialist in such a problem. A support group of several friends is also a possibility, if you have developed one. If you are a first year student, however, it is often too soon to have a strong support group, especially in the first few weeks, and any pre-university group of which you were a member is likely to be breaking up, or at least not be in a position to understand your new environment.

If your problem concerns health, then you can go to the nurse and doctors at the university. They are familiar with student problems and experienced people and do not know your family so that you need feel no embarrassment. Currently there are three doctors located in the Health Centre and several counsellors in the University Centre you can approach. These professionals really do know a lot, and they usually listen awfully well. Just telling someone about your concerns can also be amazingly helpful.

Other problems may arise. If you are lucky there might be an old family friend who can advise you. If you are a member of a religious Organisation you can turn for help to yourpriest. They do an awful lot of counselling work that is not directly concerned with any religion. The bank is a reasonable place to talk if your problem is financial and you can learn about student loans, which are an option. You can also talk to a sympathetic member of staff who can often at least point you in a direction that will help you. As Benjamin Franklin remarked that `He that won't be counselled can't be helped'.

It is often desirable to seek more than one set of advice, asking the givers why they recommend that particular course of action, then compare the advice you get. You might find several useful suggestions coming from different places, and you need not automatically do what one person suggests. In the end, you have to choose what to do, but having advice from experts at least opens up options that you might not have considered or thought of on your own.

As a rule, if you have a problem it helps to talk it over with someone. Bottling it up rarely helps and you should not let a worry fester into a serious disease but tackle it early. You know that you are a unique individual, you are a very special you, but believe me, you are not the first to have that problem, and someone somewhere can help you tackle it. Going it alone can make it longer, more painful, and just possibly lead to a more serious mental condition. If this section sounds gloomy, you should know that problems are not restricted to the university community and this would be my advice to all in the world.

READ THE SUPPLIED INFORMATION

`"Classic". A book which people praise and don't read.'

(Mark Twain, Following the Equator, 1897, chap. 25).

Do this early on. The University Handbook contains masses of information some of which will be of value to you, and there are various hand outs and kits put out by the Faculty. Read these particularly carefully. They tell you what to do and what your options are. Check the Faculty notice boards regularly and especially the timetables for any changes. The notice boards also contain information about talks by visiting experts and any special seminars that are being held. You should watch for these and go to any that interest you. They are free and a great way of getting up-to-date information, far more so than textbooks or even journal articles, especially on topics of current interest. Publication can be slow so that by the time the information is in a book it is often out of date. Naturally you have to balance your efforts and not spend all your time attending special seminars at the expense of your organised lectures and tutorials, which must come first.

MAIL

Whether you think mail is more important than male does not depend only upon your sexual preferences

You will find your mail in pigeonholes, organised alphabetically, near the general office. This is the way that the University administration communicates with you as an individual. You can use the Faculty/University as your contact address for friends and relatives if you wish, although few seem to do this. You can also communicate with other students via the pigeon holes, by dropping a note with their name on the outside in the appropriate box. If you wish to communicate with a staff member, you can either put a note in their personal pigeonhole near the general office, or stick a message on the board outside their door. Should it be urgent, a message by the door often seems to get through more quickly and it has the added advantage that you can check to see if they have received it. If it is still there, they have not.

FOR THE STUDENT COMING STRAIGHT FROM SCHOOL

`Undergraduates owe their happiness chiefly to the consciousness that they are no longer at school.'

(Sir Max Beerbohm, More, 1899, `Going Back to School').

Although there are large numbers of fellow students like you, it is often a difficult time. You have survived high school and done well enough to enter university. You have probably picked up a few bad habits, such as listening to and learning from teachers you liked, but blocking information from those that bored you or that you actively disliked. You might have learned to look for `the fast track' and an easy way of progressing through school without hard work, for instance being particularly nice to certain teachers who will mark your work. At university it is different and you learn for yourself, so that if you refuse to listen to someone you dislike, you suffer the penalty, not them. Similarly, academic staff are not usually impressed by students being nice to them, but are impressed by good marks and ability as shown in written and oral work. You will probably not even know who will mark your exam papers or semester essays, as several different people are involved, so it is hard to butter anyone up. Note also that the effort you put in is totally irrelevant and does not count towards your marks nor for what you will be admired. It is only the quality of the output you achieve that matters. I could spend the rest of my life trying to paint as well Picasso, or sing like Pavarotti or Sinead O'Connor but the time and effort I expend would never produce anything of great value. Alas!

If this is the first time you have been away from home, read the notes above on uncertainty and fear particularly carefully, as they are quite likely to apply to many of you. Although many macho types cannot admit it, there is nothing wrong in being afraid. True heroes are those who can feel fear and overcome it, in order to be brave. The inability to feel fear merely shows a marked degree of insensitivity.

Some students find it very hard to cope with the freedom offered by a university. You need to have self discipline and self control, which generally speaking you learn and develop for yourself as a result of facing minor adversity. It is part of growing up although this can be a painful process. If you find freedom (like life, the universe and everything) easy, consider yourself lucky. If you let the freedom overwhelm you and spend all your time on the beach or in the common rooms drinking coffee, you will probably pay the price of poor grades and run the danger of failing and being thrown out. Perhaps the biggest danger for those of you who are straight from school is letting the freedom go to your head and simply not studying hard enough - you really have to turn yourself into a `swot' if you can.

When you are young, it is common for you not yet to understand how much alcohol you can handle. If you are male, try to learn this without breaking things, getting violent and hitting or hurting others. It is a peculiar view of many Australian young males that the more you drink the better, and the more of a `man' you are. Macho-man is getting less popular as an image than it used to be. If you support the `drink till you drop' approach to social activity you are, in my view, wrong. Fortunately, most people seem to grow out of it. If you are female, there is an additional problem that you might be plied with alcohol until drunk, and then taken to bed by some unscrupulous male, or just occasionally, female. Be aware that if you allow yourself to get drunk, you might wake

up the following morning in a strange bed with someone that you would not normally fancy, or even consider for one moment as a sexual partner. You might not even know the other person's name which can be really alarming. It is better to avoid the gin and bare it approach, and not only because it might lead to a grin and bear it conclusion.

FOR THE MATURE STUDENT RETURNING TO STUDY

`The glory of young men is their strength:and the beauty of old men is the grey head'.

(Proverbs, 20:28).

Be assured that you can do it. Try not to worry over the youth and energy you see around you, and do not be concerned that you will be too old and not fit in. Unless you are very unlucky, there will be others around your age. University students are getting older all the time. Do not worry that you will not be able to learn and keep up. You can definitely learn - but you may need to relearn how best to learn. Age is not a barrier to learning and although it is a bit harder to learn at 50 years of age than 15, it is not that much harder. Some students have come in their sixties and seventies and managed both to enjoy themselves and get a degree.

You should pay careful attention to all the suggestions and hints below and try them all to see which work best for you personally. Many mature students feel that they will look foolish or lose face or status by failing. If you have been housebound for years without working or studying, you may feel afraid to join in discussions or say what you think in case you are `wrong' or will be laughed at. Try to fight this feeling if you have it. Despite being quite a widespread fear, it is in fact incorrect. You are more likely to find that the younger students take your word a bit more seriously just because you are older and more experienced. In short, accept that if returning to study after some years away, a feeling of anxiety or fear is normal, you are not alone in having it, and it is in most cases totally unwarranted. You will probably laugh at your fears before too long.

You should recognise that you have strengths that those with youth often lack. As a mature student you have many advantages over those straight from school. You know how much you are giving up in terms of money, career, or years of life and will be more highly motivated to succeed. A strong motivation can more than make up for a very minor reduction is the speed at which you can learn new things.

You also have maturity and experience that allow you to see things quickly and see inter-relationships that may be difficult or impossible to spot for a teenager who lacks your knowledge of the world. You are also likely to have skills in communicating with others, as you have had longer to practice and seen how it can be done. As you read articles or listen to lectures, things that you have seen or experienced in your life will strike a chord

and help you to understand what you are learning. It will also help you to remember what you read or are told.

Your extra experiences will probably mean that you are less insecure and afraid during the first few weeks than those coming straight from school. You have probably already had your corners knocked off and been smoothed by your passage through life. If you have had one or more jobs, dealt with that learning experience satisfactorily, and survived office politics or rowdy horse-play on a factory floor, there is nothing to alarm you in a university. Any apprehension is likely to be misplaced and a product of feeling you are too old and different. You aren't and you aren't. In the words of President Roosevelt, `The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'

As you are a bit older and more mature, you are also likely to be more financially secure and not working long hours in a poorly paid part-time job merely to eat. If you have to work part-time, you are likely to have the skills and contacts to earn more per hour than someone straight from school, which gains you money and saves you time. It may well be the case that you have already saved up in order to put yourself through university. In addition, it is probable that you have the strong support of your family in your effort to educate yourself.

Being older than the school leaving students, you probably have friends and relatives who have achieved things in life and they can be a valuable source of information to you. It is worth asking around to see if anyone works with polyester fibres, or has spent time in Indonesia etc., depending on what you are studying.

You are also not involved in growing up, trying to identify yourself and discover yourself as an adult human being.

Do you remember what it used to be like in your teens? It was often not easy. For many people it is a time of great intensity, the world and the hormones are in a state of flux, the level of energy and enthusiasm is high, but for what is often not really clear to the person experiencing the swirling emotions. Feelings can dominate the brain, and rapid mood swings are common, from despair to euphoria. The adolescent, beginning to see the world for him or herself and develop an independent view of things, much around seems unfair, irrational, ugly, wrong or downright evil. Struggling to find how they fit into this new and strange world, some unfortunates may see the whole thing as hopeless and not worthwhile. The previous generation is often blamed for the whole thing, even though they in their turn had inherited an imperfect world and at least some of them tried to make it a better place. Criticism of one's parents keeps welling up; why are they not better, why do they behave in such silly or unpleasant ways, why are they not perfect, as they once seemed? Why do they pick on me, hate my music, criticise my clothes, the way I sit, the friends I have - why do they not understand? All this may perhaps be accompanied by feelings of guilt, which the adolescent may try to suppress, if the parents have treated the person well when a child and still appear to be trying, however misguided or inadequate this may seem.

Despite the internal uproar, it is felt desirable or essential by most young people to maintain a calm front, pretend to be in charge, and hide the turmoil from adults. Few young men seem to be able to express their feelings to others, even if they have worked out what they feel. Young women are better at this, whether from earlier socialising pressures or genetics is not clear, nor does it matter for our purpose. A young woman may have a best friend in whom she confides much, certainly more than to her parents. It is a crazy mixed-up world, when the `cool' front has to be maintained over the bewildering emotional surges.

You as a mature person have survived this and put teenage traumas behind you. You are also far less likely to be constantly involved in worrying about sex and your sexuality, trying to find out what you feel about whom, are you straight or gay, is it possible to be both, what do my feelings about my best friend mean relative to the new boy/girl I just met and to whom I feel attracted. Will I see that special person today? What will I say, assuming I dare to speak at all? There were probably lengthy day dreams, involving a pretty or handsome member of the sex that attracts you. You or they faced various deadly dangers involving a rescue by feats of daring-do, perhaps with a white horse, a shipwreck or a desert island. All these emotions and day dreams may also be behind you. Although perhaps not the latter, they are after all great fun and a little Walter Mitty lives in us all.

The other teenage concerns about appearance may also have been discarded by you. Typically teenage young women want to be slimmer than they are and are generally dissatisfied with their physical measurements, which are regarded as too big or small. Mostly they seem to wish to lose weight. Young men on the other hand often feel they are too skinny and want to be bigger, stronger and heavier, with big biceps and shoulders. A recent disturbing recent trend is that perhaps a third now wish to lose weight and be excessively slim, rather like the young women, and adopt excessive and dangerous methods of weight reduction. Both sexes often suffer from teenage acne and if they donot they might still live in secret dread of getting it. Such distracting concerns can get in the way of successful studying.

If you are fortunate, you might by now be in a settled permanent relationship with a supportive partner whom you not only love, but actually like as well. If so this is a great big plus and it can help you to achieve at university.

Technology has advanced since you were a child, and the world seems more advanced and things may happen more quickly. Yet the human beings in it still have to grow up and mature, learn about themselves and how they fit in to social groups and the world in general. Many older people are deceived by the generally capable front presented by the young of today, and feel that because of TV, or some other influence, the young grow up faster and more easily today. They are probably wrong; it hurts just as much to move from childhood, through adolescence, to adulthood. You have been there, done that, and are more settled in yourself. This saves you a lot to time and probably much heart ache.

Read carefully the encouraging statements below on using computers, and how much fun

they are. You should keep reminding yourself that you are not too old to learn how to use one. If you doubt this, look carefully at the academic staff of the university. You will find the majority clearly left school before 1981, the year when IBM released their personal computer and revolutionised the life of many professionals. Yet most staff have learned to use computers now. I cannot claim to be any spring chicken myself. We did it; you can do it. All you need is a spirit of adventure and a lot of persistence that really amounts to little more than desire plus stubbornness. These are after all the two main attributes, other than intelligence, which got you to university, so you are clearly well equipped; all you have to do now is convince yourself.

One element of learning needs stressing for the mature student. As you get older it seems easier to learn by doing, rather than merely listening or reading. This may reflect a slight deterioration in short term memory. In your case, I suggest that you try to do additional work for yourself as well as reading the textbooks and set reading material. This should involve actively doing something if possible. It can take the form of spending more time drawing diagrams, drawing up tables, reading your notes and condensing them, going to the library and searching for information yourself on the topic you are currently studying, looking up alternative text books, checking encyclopaedias to see what they say about it and so on. Recounting what you have just learned to another person is particularly useful as a way of reinforcing the information if you are no longer in the first flush of youth. If you have a supportive partner who will willingly listen, it helps a lot. If not, consider forming a study alliance with another mature student and working as a partnership, bouncing your latest ideas and information off them and reciprocating. If you are doing the same subject, you both benefit from both presenting and listening.

Probably the main thing to sort out is your immediate family and your relationships within it. You may have obligations, especially if you have children and have to prepare meals, pick them up from school and so forth. If you have a supportive partner, then he/she can take a lot of the burden off your shoulders. You should still be prepared for a degree of resentment and a possible feeling of being exploited or `put upon' if, for instance, you have to stay up half the night finishing an assignment and then sleep late the following day. It helps to discuss such things and not allow them to build up to a state where you both adopt immoveable positions. Friction there will probably be, but discussing the issue and trying to find compromises can help to minimize the effects.

You will certainly need to make some changes in your family life. A family does place some obligations on its members. Those with children are prone to feel guilty about not looking after them the way they once did. The guilt can show in a variety of ways, such as spending `quality time' with the children as soon as you and they get in, and not resting or relaxing enough personally. If you are aware in advance of the possibility of such dangers, it helps to avoid some of them and cope with others. Keep reminding yourself that you are not the first person, nor will you be the last, to face these problems. They managed, and so can you, but it might need family discussion and joint effort.

Mature students can actually feel that they might do a bit better than if they had come straight out of school. In some countries the governments decided that it was a waste to

send school leavers on directly into further education, and have insisted that they work for a few years, in order to gain experience and maturity that will help them when studying. Oxford and Cambridge in England accept their students only for the year after they leave school, so that they get a year off to do something interesting before returning to study. They are of course a year older than their equivalents in other universities which helps them in competition for jobs. If people insist that universities take older students, there must be something good in it.

FOR THE FOREIGN, ESPECIALLY ASIAN, STUDENTS

`I, a stranger and afraidIn a world I never made.'

(A.E. Houseman, Last Poems, 1922, No.12.)

Expect to feel lonely and homesick in the first few weeks, especially if this is your first time living outside your own country. It is normal to miss your family and friends, as well as the food and local language. In addition, there is a whole new culture to live in with its own rules with which you will not be familiar. It can be very upsetting and loneliness can, in extreme forms, lead to depression and illness. To combat such feelings, try to join some clubs or groups, get out and talk to people. You might find it helpful to offer to give language practice sessions in exchange for English lessons, if your native language is one that the university teaches (currently Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, and Korean). This will gain you access to more students with whom you can make friends. If your English is suspect, try to continue learning, perhaps join a course and practice, practice, practice!

You probably brought with you one or more dictionaries from English-to-your-language, in order to cope with the material you will read. You might also find it useful to buy a small and simple English dictionary and use this also, as it will help you to increase your familiarity with the language.

It is natural to seek out one's own kind to be with, seeking familiar companionship. This will help to tide you over the first few weeks. Be careful however not to limit yourself to friends from your own country and go around in a little ghetto-group. You probably need to practice and improve your English which requires mixing with Australians and others at the university.

If your English is poor, you might find it useful if some or all of the fellow students from your country get together after each lecture and compare notes. In this way you may find that you misunderstood an important point and can correct your notes, as well as discuss the lecture material in your native language. This will help you to both understand and to remember the subject matter.

The Australian sense of humour is strong, but a little anti-establishment. The humour tends to be laconic, dry, witty and sardonic. You may not notice much of the humour as it may not seem funny at all to you, and so you do not recognise it for what it is.

You will notice, and perhaps be offended by, a tendency of Australian students to criticise Australia (their own country), the government, its policies, the university and some of its staff. This is perfectly normal in the culture and is encouraged. The development of a critical faculty is regarded as important in the West. You should accept this. Many Australians seem to regard politicians and leaders as essentially untrustworthy and probably corrupt, rather the sort of image that is associated with professional sellers of used cars.

Allied to this, Australians do not naturally respect authority and can be antagonistic towards it. The reasons lie in history and seem to be the result of the early transport of convicts who were anti-establishment and the number of Irish migrants who were anti English as well as anti authority. Many Australians also have scant regard for ritual and ceremony and some may tend to mock those who do.

In Australia, age is not automatically respected, nor is experience. Respect has to be earned and is not given as a matter of course to someone occupying a position of authority. This of course includes teachers so that you should not be shocked if some Australian students do not respect their teachers and query what they say or criticise their views. This may well be an event that would be strange, or even unthinkable, in your society. There is also a well-known tendency among Australians to `cut down tall poppies' which means criticizing or rejecting people who are notably more successful than average. This is regarded as strange by most non-Australians but is relatively common. From your point of view as a student, it largely means not boasting or putting on airs. Although this tall poppy syndrome is not helpful to a country trying to improve and develop, some Australians seem to be quite proud of this tradition.

Try not merely to learn your textbooks, and what you are told in lectures, off by heart. A common criticism of the education system that is made within Asian countries is that it encourages memorizing or learning by heart, rather than critically reading the material and applying what has been learned to actual problems. You should remember what you are told, but also try to think about it and question it. Such behaviour may seem alien to your traditions at first, but it lies at the centre of Western education and individualism.

Do take seriously the comments about asking if you do not understand. It is particularly important for you, as in your society it may not be expected that you will ever ask a question, but it is very different in Australia.

Do try to speak up in tutorials and workshops. In your society it may not seem polite to present your individual view, and you may be used to seeking a consensus, avoiding dispute and argument, and waiting for the group view to emerge. In Australia it is expected that each individual will state their position and argue it, and the final result

might be a decision taken by vote or even permanent lack of agreement. Arguing and defending your position is normal and expected. Particularly if there are `participation marks' or the like as a part of the assessment, you must try to join in, decide what you think, say it, and defend it if attacked. The attacker is not going for you personally but is only criticizing the view expressed, so you should try not to feel that you are loosing face - this is not an important concept at a Western university. Try not to get annoyed if someone criticizes your country, its government, or its policies. Again, it is not meant personally, but is part of the Western approach to education. The staff may on occasion offend you in this way, but do not let it worry you. Someone once defined a Western academic as someone who would rather be wrong for an interesting reason than right for a mundane one! Disputing a proposition is normal, and the seeking of truth is seen to be furthered by the process of battering down falsities. Students in the West generally are expected to question, not merely accept what they are told.

You will find that you are expected to make many decisions as an individual that might be new to you and this could easily become a source of worry. Try to cope with this, discuss your concerns with fellow students from your country and see how they cope. A trouble shared is often a trouble halved. The freedom can be wonderful, once you have learned to expect it and know how to deal with it.

Note that Australians tend to touch more than in many Asian societies. If you are slapped on the back, punched gently on the arm in friendly fashion, or an arm is laid around your shoulders, try to accept it gracefully and do not take offense. The person means it as a sign of friendship, even if such an act would be gauche or even insulting in your society. Naturally, if you are receiving unwanted sexual approaches, you should object and point out that you would prefer them not to touch you and wish to be left alone (and see above in Friends and Support Groups).

A similar situation exists with the use of given names. In Australia it is normal to address someone to whom you are introduced by their given, rather than family, name. In Australia, this use of the given name shows friendliness. If you use their family name (`Mr. Smith') it is regarded as stand-off-ish and Mr. Smith is likely to think that you are putting on airs and graces. Try not to take offense if someone uses your given name immediately after you have been introduced, as the person is indicating a friendly attitude towards you.

Table manners vary from country to country and it is very easy to cause offense by doing something natural to you, but that happens to conflict with some value in your new country. You can probably think of examples from foreign visitors to your country. In all probability, those that you inadvertently offend will not tell you what you should be doing, or not doing. If you come from a society that regards it as normal to make a slurping noise when drinking tea or soup, you should try to remember that this is considered to be offensive in most Western countries. Tip the cup of tea more and pour rather than suck the tea; with soup, tip the spoon more and pour the content into your mouth. The correct use of knife and fork is important. You should hold them properly, fork in left hand, knife in right. The index finger should be placed on the top of the fork.

Do not hold them like a writing brush or in your clenched fists. You should also not lay them down with the heel on the table and the business end resting on the plate. For no particularly obvious reason this is felt to be bad manners in polite society. The English think it polite when using a spoon in a bowl, e.g., eating soup, to fill the spoon by moving it away from the body, rather than the more natural spooning towards oneself. There are many migrants from England living in Australia, and the well-brought up ones are likely to continue to use their spoons in this idiosyncratic well-mannered way and perhaps look down on those who do not. It is generally considered rude to rest both elbows on the table while eating or after you have finished eating and are talking. Some people regard one elbow as acceptable, but not two. Resting no elbows on the table is always safe. You might find that students tend to take less notice of `good manners' than people outside academia, but you might as well as get it right from the beginning.

Another thing to be aware of is that Australian students, like many adults, sit very casually and tend to sprawl a lot, rather than sitting upright, as you may have been trained to do. You should not necessarily feel that someone is casual or not paying proper attention merely because they sit like this. They might even put their feet on the table in coffee rooms and elsewhere. The University discourages this behaviour as it is unseemly, but again it is not regarded as a gross insult, merely sloppy manners.

You may come from a culture that views the world we live in as a sort of inter-connected web, within which things happen and people flourish, and this web is moving through time. Chinese and Japanese cultures are prone to this. The Western view is perhaps more simplistic, relying on a straight cause and effect in linear fashion. This often leads to questions like `What were the origins of...' some event, or what were its consequences; sometimes the attitude causes a search for something or someone to blame when anything goes wrong. If your culture tends to focus on putting things right and restoring harmony (rather than blaming someone) then you might find the Western approach a little worrying. Do not let it concern you, just accept it.

Many Asian societies in particular rely heavily on an indirect approach, with reticence being valued and loud boasting behaviour regarded as immature and unacceptable. As people are often trained to conceal their thoughts for the sake of social harmony, they get very adept at seeking and finding hidden meanings in things that are said, and often in things that are not said. The Australian culture is much more straightforward, as are many of the individuals making up the society. Relatively few Australians are sophisticated in handling indirect complex personal relationships, simply because they have little or no practice in this area. You should not spend lengthy periods of time worrying about the `real' meaning of something you have heard or witnessed, as there may well be no hidden agenda to be discovered.

Different societies and cultures have different views of what is right and wrong, or good and bad mannered. This means that some things you encounter will surprise or perhaps shock you. Naturally you should not let this show nor complain loudly about such things. Remember that the natural social behaviour in your country might equally surprise or

shock an Australian friend of yours. Culture shock is a well-known phenomenon and can take various forms. Often, moving to another country means an initial period of excitement and some fear, followed by a period of resentment and dislike of what surrounds you and perhaps depression. After this comes a slow acceptance andrealization of the benefits and value of the new culture. The time needed for each stage of adjusting to a new culture varies from individual to individual, but it could be six months, a year, or even more before a person starts to appreciate properly the new country. Many think of the process of adaption when faced with culture shock as `U-shaped' starting with a high excitement, followed by the decline and dislike, then finally rising to a new situation of acceptance and liking. If you do not suffer from such culture shock adjustments, be thankful, and sympathize with those who do.

It might be reassuring to you if you remember that if you have your own language to study as a subject, this will be easy for you. This frees time for you to work on your spoken and written English if you need it.

4 YOUR SUBJECTS

`Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.'

(Dr. Johnson, Boswell's Life of Johnson, p.365, 18 April, 1775).

You will normally take three years to complete a degree consisting of two hundred and forty credit points, eighty each year(see Figure 2).

Figure 0 The Organisation of a Degree

THE FIRST YEAR

`The first stroke is half the battle.'

(Traditional saying.)

The first year course is designed not only to give you a firm foundation in the various disciplines (and a language) which you will build upon in later years, it is also set up to be rather like a `shop window' which you can look in, sample bits of the various offerings and more rationally choose what you will most enjoy or succeed at in the subsequent years. You will receive several kits that describe the individual components of the First year and how each is organised. Read these kits carefully as they not only lay out the various lectures and what will be covered and when, but they also tell you what is expected of you, including what dates you will have to put in essays, when workshops start and the like. They also tell you how the particular stream is assessed and the weighting of the different components, such as how much to exams and to essays. It is common to feel that the First year contains too much information and goes too quickly. If you find this applies to you, first, try to relax for you are normal, and secondly, review your studying techniques and see if you can become more efficient in the way you approach your studying.

CHOOSING YOUR SUBJECTS IN SECOND AND THIRD YEAR

`Life's business being just the terrible choice.'

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Ring and the Book , bk.x, l.1236).

Many of the first year subjects are set and you must do them, in order to give you a strong foundation. Towards the end of the first year you will have to start to decide what exactly you wish to study. When choosing what subjects to undertake you should be aware that your degree results will appear on a computer transcript that indicates exactly what subjects you studied and how well you did in each, including fails, pass conceded, pass, credit, distinction and high distinction. When you come to apply for a job, your potential employer may well ask to see this, and normally they select the applicants with

the best scores. They want not just someone with a degree, but someone with a `good degree'. As most people tend to score best at things that most interest them, you are usually advised to choose what interests you, rather than what you think an employer might want. Most employers prefer to see distinctions in subjects that do not directly concern their firm or department, rather than bare passes accompanied by the odd fail in subjects that are directly relevant.

Employers know that someone who has demonstrated that he/she can do well is a good choice for all the in-house learning and training that the new employee will undergo. Unless you are doing vocational training, e.g., to be something like a medical doctor, computer programmer or statistician, much of the information and practices that you will require to do a job well are normally learned by doing the job itself. If you are a typical person, much of your future career will involve you doing things that you did not learn at university. Naturally, the wider the base of subjects you select, the more chance there is of using a bit of your university learning.

This is particularly the case since about the mid 1980s, because firms internationally have been forced by increasing competition to improve their efficiency. This has often meant shedding middle management positions and adopting a flatter management profile in the firm. As a consequence, there are fewer posts in management available, so the normal process of the past, of joining a firm and working one's way up the ladder, is starting to become less common. The ladder is shorter than it once was. This means two things. First, that within a firm, a graduate will have to do more and different jobs, rather than staying in Personnel, or whatever, as in the past. A manager is increasingly expected to manage more generally, perhaps joining a team for a period, then moving to another team and taking on a different role. Second, it means that graduates are more likely to have to move to new firms where the structure and positions are unlikely to be identical to those in the old firm. These two changes are increasing the need for several portable skills, rather than one intense skill with in-depth knowledge. In any case, knowledge advances so quickly nowadays that the facts, and even theories, which you may learn at university tend to get rendered out of date more quickly than in the past.

What is increasingly sought are professional skills, such as good communication, problem-solving, cooperative team working, and the ability to control time-management. A basis for these can and should be learned while at university, particularly Griffith University, which has laid stress on most of these from its inception. Time-management is the one that you will perhaps have to work at more for yourself.

You can usefully bear these factors in mind when choosing your subjects, and also when working in groups or attending scheduled workshops, tutorials or seminars the subject of which may not seem immediately relevant to what you perceive as your current needs. When you come to apply for jobs, you can, and indeed should, frame your application to lay stress on such things. Some people think it is useful to have some management-type experience to show, such as being on one or two committees that run a University club or having been active in the student union. Certainly such things on your Curriculum Vitae (often abbreviated to CV and also known as a resumé in North America) can only help,

although if you run across a recruiter who hates a certain political party or has strong views about particular religions etc. it just might back-fire. Such problems are not restricted to graduate employment; the world is full of such unpleasant situations. Almost any newspaper will reveal instances of people being willing to kill others for suchtrivial reasons.

You should look up the Faculty subjects to see what will be held in later years and note if any subjects you think you might like to do then have any prerequisites set. If you do not do this, you might eventually find that you are barred from something you wish to study as you have failed to take some earlier subject.

In some universities the Student Union has surveyed many of the subjects available and done an unofficial guide to each, telling you if the lecturers are good, whether the material is useful and interesting etc. While they tend to be critical, they are a most useful source of information when you have to make choices. You should know that `popular', `interesting', `fun' and the like may not prove the only consideration for you. `Challenging', `stimulating', `difficult but valuable' all speak for themselves and are sometimes a better bet.

Half way through your first year it may be useful to rethink what subjects you might wish to do in the second year, as exposure to new subjects or a new look at ones you did at school and hated then but like now, may cause you to change your mind. You should not automatically accept that if you came with the intention of doing one thing, that is an immutable decision set in stone.

When studying for the BA. in MAS (The School of Modern Asian Studies) there are two main ways to go when selecting direction and subjects for the final two years. You can either take one country in depth (e.g., Chinese language, and a choice of several other subjects on China such as the economy, modern history, and social change), or else a discipline (e.g., microeconomics, macroeconomics, and Japanese Management and Industrial Relations, which cover both theory and Asian countries). It is not absolutely essential to choose one, and you can easily mix and match, but many students find there are clear advantages in either choosing or stressing one approach, rather than just muddling through.

Other Schools and Faculties often have similar fairly obvious optional directions and if you are not in MAS you should check the University Handbook or get help by talking to one of the staff in your School.

By the third year, you might find that you have already done most of the subjects that appeal to you. If you are having difficulty at that stage in finding something to do, consider cross registering in another School in your Faculty or even in another Faculty for the odd subject. Check the University handbook for what subjects are offered that might interest you, and also check on the current rules on how many subjects you are allowed to do in this way.

It is uncommon these days to be offered a subject such as `Guided Studies' which allows you to do a project within a subject, but it is worth asking about, as times change. You should however be aware that although such a study method sounds simple it actually is not so. Some students mistakenly wish to do such a subject as they think it will be easier, with few or no lectures to go to. In fact, since almost all the work has to be done by you, they tend to be more time-heavy than a normal subject. They also demand a different set of skills, including much self-discipline, the ability to find your own information, to organise it in a sensible way, plug holes in your data or material, and reach some sensible conclusions of your own. These are skills more associated with research at the post graduate level rather than typical of undergraduate experience, and it can be a long slow learning curve for some. Never believe that such subjects are an easy option.

On the positive side, such subjects are often more interesting, as within reason you can choose what you like or at least something that interests you. As a result, you are likely to be more motivated than normal and enjoy it more. In view of the extra amount of work you will probably need to do, this is just as well. It is well established that people also tend to remember better, and for longer, things that they have discovered or worked out for themselves, rather than being handed to them on a plate by some academic.

When undertaking a project, you are getting closer to real research than most learning that is done at the undergraduate level. What you might have been told was `research' at school was nothing of the kind. It was actually merely `doing your homework', in that it meant going off to the library and reading what people had already said about a topic and finding this for yourself before writing it up. Research means a bit more than that, and includes originality and hopefully a venture into some real thought.

Rocky

5 HOW TO STUDY AND LEARN

ATTITUDES, VALUES AND SOME ADVICE

`The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values.'

(William Ralph Inge, `The Training of Reason', in A.C. Benson (ed.) Cambridge Essays on Education, 1917, chap.2).

Everyone has a set of views that they carry around with them as a sort of cultural baggage. Once you are aware of this, you are in a position to examine yourself and your particular set of beliefs. Some are likely to be the result of conscious thought and acceptance on your part, many others will have been fed to you by your parents or

teachers, or perhaps picked up and accepted with little if any consideration. These views that you hold can affect how you approach study at university - and some approaches are better than others. The following advice might be helpful.

Avoid regarding your own experience as a definitive truth. It is always a mistake to think `What would I do?' and assume that this is so reasonable that others would do exactly the same. Just because you would behave in a certain way, or have actually done so in the past, does not mean that you can rely on this as defining how others behave or how the world works generally.

Avoid small samples. Your own experience is a sample of one, and the experience of your friends is likely to be a sample of a few at best and more likely around half a dozen whom you know particularly well. What happens to them or to you is too small a sample to be generalized to `This is how the world operates' with any degree of confidence. Beware of people who give you one anecdote from their experience as an explanation of what must be `the truth'.

Plausibility does not mean truth. Merely because something seems to you to be a likely event or way the world works does not mean that it must happen. It really tells you nothing about the truth of a matter. You might find this a common way of arguing at first but bear in mind how unreliable it is.

Consistency does not mean truth. Merely because an argument hangs together and there appear to be no logical objections to it, does not render it true. Faked alibis in law courts are often consistent, but by definition are incorrect. Consistency in economic plans may be desirable, but it does not ensure that they are either sensible for the economy or wanted by anyone except the planners. Nor of course does it ensure that the plans will be achieved.

Repetition does not mean truth. Because something is told to you often, either now or in your past, does not make it true. The people telling you might have been mistaken or they might have been misleading you in part or whole. Television advertising offers some fine examples of constant repetition being deliberately undertaken in an effort to make you believe something.

The number who believe in a view does not make it true. Truth cannot be settled by a democratic vote, with the majority determining what it is.

The number of points to a case does not indicate truth. Clearly if there are six weak points in favour of a proposition and five strong ones against, we cannot automatically accept that the proposition is correct.

The views of someone you like or respect does not necessarily equate with truth. At school, you might have been tempted to hang on the words of a favourite teacher and discount the views of someone unpopular with you. If you tended to do this, and many do, discard this approach.

The views of someone from a different academic discipline or profession do not mean it must be true. When, say, an internationally respected physicist with a Nobel prize speaks out on something like international relations, his/her view is merely that of an intelligent observer, not a specialist and need not automatically be regarded as correct. There is no reason to think that military generals, successful in war, necessarily make good presidents of a country in peacetime. It is perhaps surprising that the USA, the citizens of which have tended to vote for generals, has managed to get reasonable ex-military Presidents on the whole.

The latest or newest information is not necessarily true. Some government departments offer prime examples of believing or at least operating as if they believed this proposition. I have witnessed many examples of intelligent high powered people in meetings accepting that the latest cable to arrive in Canberra from an Australian Embassy must be taken as gospel. A quote from the latest cable is often sufficient to win anargument, ludicrous though this seems. When working in the public service, I do not recall ever hearing anyone querying any recent information on the grounds that it seems unlikely or possibly mistaken. Try not to follow this poor practice and if you ever get into a position of power in the public service, you might bear it in mind. Perhaps you will even be able to change and improve matters.

Ultra-complexity does not necessarily equate with the truth. Just because a proposition might be hard to grasp and one gets a feeling of achievement when eventually it is understood, does not mean it must be true. The editors of several academic journals seem to confuse the use of advanced mathematics with indicating that a view is valuable. Some people still wonder if certain relatively modern philosophers, such as Kant, who seem almost impossible to understand are really saying anything important at all. This was foreseen as long ago as the days of the Roman Empire, when Tacitus remarked with great sagacity, `Men credit most easily the things which they do not understand. They believe most readily things which are obscure'.

In our efforts to understand the wonderfully complex world in which we live, generally we try to set up some sort of theory and test it. In simplified form, we make the theory predict something, test that prediction by referring to what measurement suggests happens in the world and see if the theory is refuted or not. If it is refuted, the idea was wrong and we try again. When testing, we usually try to make the theory fail and hope it passes the test, rather than try to justify the theory. In a complicated world it is usually fairly easy to find data that corresponds with just about any theory, so trying to back up a theory rather than refute it is an approach that promises little in which we can place trust. Bob Dylan wrote the words `Take what you can gather from coincidence' and he had a point. Testing a hypothesis is the way we try to get around accepting easy but misleading lessons from coincidence.

SOME ADVICE THAT REFLECTS MY VALUE JUDGEMENTS

All of the advice in this monograph is mine and much of it reflects my values. In this section I present advice that is clearly value ridden, and you are at liberty to ignore it. What this section does is reveal something of me, in order that you can see the sort of person I am and allow you to evaluate the advice better.

Common sense is a valuable commodity, and is often in surprisingly short supply around the higher levels of intellectual endeavour. While you should try to apply your common sense to everything you hear, read, or are told, you must be careful not to rely upon it to provide answers. As Albert Einstein pointed out, `Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of eighteen' [Scientific American, Feb. 1976]. What you believe or think you believe, may or may not have validity. Obtaining an education is a start towards the getting of wisdom and the process of learning can shake some of your belief system or change your essential views of the world.

Do not be dogmatic or self-opinionated. There is a danger that once you have tasted the heady delights of learning, and especially of thinking, you will get so wrapped up in it that you go round trying to convert others to your particular view. If you do this, try not to sound as if all knowledge on the subject lies within your particular grasp. It seems improbable that any particular philosophy or political ideology has a complete monopoly on truth. When you make a point, you should also listen to the replies you get and consider them carefully and dispassionately. Too many people seem not to listen to the opposition's argument, but instead are mentally rehearsing the points that they will themselves make, once allowed in.

Try to keep an open mind and be prepared to change your views. You will be exposed to new views and information while at university. Recall William Blake: `The man who never alters his opinion is like stagnant water, and breeds reptiles of the mind'.

If you already whole-heartedly subscribe to a particular ideology, political party or religion you probably get much emotional reward in the sense of certainty and reassurance, as well as belonging to an easily recognized group that can provide support when needed. There are two intellectual dangers that can affect you however. One is dogmatism, i.e., knowing that you are right and that all the others are wrong. The other, and closely related danger, is narrow-mindedness, in that you may not consider any views that seem to conflict with what you believe you already know. While at university you will be exposed to views and opinions which may contradict what you have been trained to believe. There is a danger that you will either reject them out of hand (the common if less desirable practice), or begin to have doubts about what you believe. This can lead to internal stress, as the world as you know it starts to crumble and it may begin to take on a new and unrecognizable shape. This can be frightening to some and they might wallow in confusion. If this happens to you, be aware that such uncertainty and strain are normal; you are not the first to experience them and you will certainly not be last.

In the West, the majority of thinkers value a pluralistic society where different views and ideas are allowed to exist and flourish. Their merits can be compared and contrasted and openly debated, with at least an improved chance of something we might call `truth', or at least `better' resulting. Beware of those who would try to persuade you that theirs is the only correct political or social beliefs or system and are prepared to use force to prevent the adoption of any alternatives. A university in particular must allow rival views and opinions to be aired and discussed. Muzzling someone does not answer their points or cause them to change their views, even if you think these totally wrong. The writer/philosopher Voltaire expressed this as `I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.

More and better information is always desirable. You should beware of governments and departments which try to conceal information from those they rule. Be aware that data and statistics can mislead, sometimes by accident, often by deliberate intention. `There are lies, damn lies, and statistics' is pungent but perhaps not a bad description. When using a run of statistics you should watch carefully for changes in definitions over the years. Governments have a nasty habit of `fixing' problems by hiding them. The Chinese government shows a misleadingly small unemployment rate by means such as refusing to count anyone as unemployed if they refuse a single job. The Chinese are not alone. During the 1980s, the British government disguised the size of the real rate of unemployment, by removing unemployed people from the list, although these people had no job. The Government used a series of (largely definitional) changes on some forty occasions, and dropped people from the statistics. In Australia, the unemployment figures are disputed regularly, although Australia and Canada are regarded internationally as having the most accurate statistics in the world, despite them being released more slowly [`Economics Brief', The Economist, 11 Sep. 1993, p.83]. In part, the first is a function of the second, as fewer revisions have to be made.

Some hold that there is no `truth' to be found and that all things are relative, perhaps to the society, and time considered. If one considers four major religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and the Muslim faith (listed alphabetically), each holds a totally different set of `truths', which mutually conflict. At best, only one can be true. When one further considers the variations and factions within the main religions, the number of truths multiplies considerably. Truth, like beauty, might lie in the eyes of the beholder. Even what seem to us to be truths like `The sun rises in the east' will not always be the case, as eventually the sun will cease to emit light and heat and the world perhaps cease to spin.

Others hold that absolute truths do exist. Such views particularly tend to rise when there is a well-publicised and particularly horrid torture/murder case. The concepts of good and evil are then often examined anew.

Relatively few these days hold to the once popular idea of `natural rights'. More modern ideas suggest that what are argued as natural rights are really merely civic desires that have been achieved, whereupon they become something that cannot easily be removed. With no power one has no natural rights, with much power one has lots. Extreme

believers, whether of a religious or political bent, are more likely to approve of the doctrine of natural rights.

In view of the above considerations, it is suggested that you try to keep an open mind and not denigrate or persecute those who hold values about which you have doubts or entirely disagree.

One of the things you must do is question, question and question. This does not mean that you should not learn what you are told, for you should. But you should not automatically believe it, but merely remember it as what is currently believed. Keep on asking those questions, firstly to get answers. And then ask questions on the basis of the knowledge gained, including about the knowledge itself. There is much that we do not know, and probably much of what we think we know is either only partially true or even wrong. If you indulge in a process such as this, you both help to develop yourself and also might help push back the frontiers of knowledge a bit more.

TEXTBOOKS

`And none can read the text, not even I...'

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur, Merlyn and Vivien, l.679).

Probably will need to buy one textbook per subject and maybe a book of readings (if one is set). You will probably not have money to buy all the books that people put on lists, so you might need to be selective. You might not even read all of a book that appears on a list, as it may be there because it is particularly good on one topic only, such as economic aid in a book concerned with general economic development.

There are lots of different textbooks. We usually recommend one or two for a subject. Do not feel that you must use that book and only that book. Try several in the library and if you find one that seems both easy to understand and covers the topic well, use it. If it is particularly helpful, then buy a copy if you can. It is useful to look up the call number of your textbooks in the library catalogue and go to the shelves where they are kept. Examine the books by different authors around the set text - many will be useful to you and some may suit you as well or better than the set text. There is not much point asking someone `Which is the best textbook?'. There is no such thing as the perfect textbook -they each have strengths and weaknesses and the writing style of one may be easier for you to learn from. If you can discover a book that fits you well, use it. There can be a book that is best for you, but it is improbable that it will be the best for everyone.

If rather than being set one or two textbooks you get a book list that is extremely long, do

not panic. You are not really expected to learn everything in all of them. The title of some will probably indicate that they have a limited and specialist relevance in the subject. If the dates of publication seem to range regularly from a date some years back, with a few books added each year, it is possible that the compiler of the list has been energetic enough to keep the list up-to-date, but not energetic enough to have knocked out books that have been superseded. Some academics also seem to develop an unreasonable degree of affection for old textbooks that they learned something from and enjoyed. They may have a psychological block about removing such books.

Should you be faced with a long book list, it often pays to start with the latest, or one of the latest, books on the list. It will have later ideas in it and will have dropped some of the views now regarded as old fashioned or which are not as relevant to the questions now being asked. It may also be laid out better, using modern ideas and technology, and you might find this is easier to learn from. You should select one to read and test before buying. Books are extremely expensive these days, so you do not want to wind up with something unsuitable for your needs. Choose one with a reasonably general title, rather than one that seems to deal with a specific part of the subject, as you are looking for a book to cover the whole semester.

If you have set up or joined a study group, you might find you can share textbooks and save a bit of money in this way. The saving can then be spent on additional books for the group. Make sure everyone knows which person in the group owns what, in case the group folds or someone leaves - it is best to put your name in any book you own.

Second hand textbooks are cheaper but it is best to make sure that they are the current edition being used, as page or chapter references may be given in class and it is easier not to have to keep checking with a friend to get the relevant pages in your out of date book (if they are in at all). If you are very hard up, and a really cheap copy of an out of date book is offered, it may be worth your while trading off later information for the saving in price. You can always ask the people giving the lectures what they think of the older edition.

When approaching any serious book, use the index in the back as well as the contents page in the front. It is probably that you will have a particular aim in mind, e.g., finding out about religion in Indonesia, and you will not have to read the entire book to find what you need. Compare what several books say about a topic, e.g., marginal productivity, and see which you can learn the best from. When looking up items in an index you may have to think of alternatives to check, e.g., `trade unions', `unions', `labour unions', `worker unions' and `worker organizations' may need checking. Think carefully if the first phrase you look up is not there. You should also check the edition and year of publication: old books can be seriously out of date.

If you are looking up a topic and find conflicting statistical data it can seem confusing. Actually it can be rather fun, putting the data side by side, investigating why there is a discrepancy, and reporting your findings. There are a few rules of thumb that may help. Ask yourself if the author has a particular axe to grind. Religion can affect people's

views, as can the particular firm the person works for. An Irish bishop and a representative of a firm that manufactures condoms will probably disagree about the desirability of birth control, for example. An economist working for a trade union will have different ideas from one working for a management Organisation. Other things that can seriously affect views include ideology, social status, wealth, nationality, and sex.

Ask yourself about the likely ability of the author. A privately published book by someone unknown from some obscure town in Brazil is less impressive a credential than a Nobel prize winner publishing in their own field. This is not to say the latter must always be correct, but it is more likely. At the post graduate level you might delve a bit deeper into the issue. Equally, the views of the man who sells you your daily newspaper are mostly a less reliable source to quote than, say, some Prime Minister. The latter may not always wish to tell you the truth, but he probably knows more about what the truth really is.

If in the end you are down to choosing between statistics put out by a body you do not know, or any Organisation with a strange name like `The Friends of Charlie', and those from a United Nations body, select the latter. UN statistics are not always correct or may be fudged, (I speak as one who one worked for the UN) but their staff do generally try hard and they may have had access to unpublished sources. Any UN body can safely be quoted, and if challenged you can pass the buck over to the UN. It is not an easy target to attack, at least as far as producing statistics is concerned. You might find it harder to justify using the views of your news agent or The Friends of Charlie as a source.

If you are considering xeroxing a part of a book or monograph, do your sums first and compare the xeroxing price with buying the book. It has been known for students and academic staff to spend more money as well as the time involved copying something that can easily be bought more cheaply, especially second hand. As books rise in price, this is becoming less common, but it still can happen, particularly with university monographs in a series where the price was fixed long ago, or are being subsidized one way or another. Note also that copyright laws apply, and it is illegal to copy more than a fairly small percentage of a book or monograph.

HOW TO STUDY

`Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving - HOW NOT TO DO IT.'

(Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, bk.1, ch.10).

You have to find your own `best way' and discover what suits your personality the best. The following is a set of points that most people find work well for them. Try them. If they work, great. If some of them do not work for you, try something else. The only rule

is that if it works for you it is right for you.

When reading anything for study purposes, rather than say a novel for pleasure, you should have a pen in one hand, or at least within easy reach, and a pad of paper beside you. You should note the main ideas if the topic or the ideas are new to you. If you are familiar with the topic, you might choose only to mark the new or controversial points made, as your will use the material as an alternate view, or perhaps to argue against later. The only people who need not read for study purposes without a pen and paper are those gifted with total recall. You almost certainly do not fall into this category. As you read, you should immediately put down on paper any critical ideas that might jump into your head as you are reading any material, in case you cannot remember them later. To lose a good idea is to lose part of your intellectual wallet.

You should reread your notes for each subject often, doing this by section. It is better to read your lecture notes and all other notes devoted to one section or topic, then move on to another, rather than read just some of your notes on a section. This is a good reason for keeping lecture and other notes together. Remember that you do not learn something merely by possessing it - you have to read textbooks and notes, not merely own them or carry them around. Hard work is required to learn something. The importance of reading and rereading your notes cannot be over-stressed. If you think of this as meaning constant revision, then fine, just make sure you do it.

LANGUAGE STUDY

`I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.'

(Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Tour to the Hebrides, 18 Sept., 1773 p.310).

Many students have difficulty learning their first foreign language. The whole process seems different and incredibly difficult to cope with. The fact that everyone learned their first language quickly and reasonable easily does not seem to help much. It was all too long ago. The mind could really soak up information from the time of birth to, say, the age of three years. After that, the rate of acquisition of knowledge slows down. Yet many people do learn to read and speak a foreign language, and so can you.

The first thing to accept is that it will take much effort. It is not possible for adults to learn a language by osmosis, just absorbing and picking it up by being there. The author George MacDonald Fraser, when writing the Flashman series of books, uses it as a device to get the hero (?) fluent in a foreign language in a couple of weeks, but that is in fiction. In the old days, many colonialists spent most of their adult lives in a foreign country and spoke no more language than was needed to order drinks and meals and control domestic servants. Some spoke none of the foreign language at all, even after having lived in a

foreign country for decades.

How can you best apply this effort? First, you should go to all the classes and do all the set preparation and homework. It can be tedious in the beginning, but it pays off in the end. Next, accept that learning a language is much easier if there are two or three of you working together. Get a `language study buddy' and cooperate. You can test each other on drills, learn vocabulary together and test each other out. Revising last week'svocabulary can be mutually beneficial; many students concentrate on the vocabulary of the current lesson, and fail to reinforce what they have previously learned.

Use the language laboratory facilities whenever they are free and you have a spare fifteen or twenty minutes. This is a valuable use of time, as it is easier to assimilate small amounts of information. If your study buddy and you cover the same material for a period, you can follow this by sitting quietly and reviewing it. After that it helps to talk to each other in the language, using the material you have just studied and practised; this reinforces your learning and also shortens the time needed to absorb the material. Set aside a few periods, putting it on your timetable, when you can both do this.

Language learning needs vocabulary. Mothers, and a few fathers, instill this in children by constant repetition. You might notice that as soon as the child is able to make sensible sounds, the mother insists that the child repeats the word aloud, often several times. They then bring up the word several times for the child, and make it use the word. They are instinctively good language teachers. Every word you learn must be used, and said out loud many times. Sitting learning lists of words, hearing them in your head and not saying them out loud is not a total waste of time, but it is nowhere near as valuable as vocalizing them. You will not get the sound exactly right, but the general sound is going in your head. Your teachers can correct and polish your pronunciation easily, but you have to learn the word. If you only learn by hearing in your head, you might join the large ranks of people who can read a foreign language, often well, but cannot use the local bus service or even order a cup of coffee. You should aim to speak as well as read.

When learning a foreign vocabulary, many people make a list of the words, sometimes writing them out several times, on the grounds that this helps them to remember. It might do so, but it is not a particularly efficient way of learning or use of your time. Usually, it is better to avoid lists completely, except for writing down words in class. It is better to make small cards with the foreign word on one side and the English on the other. A major problem with lists, is that they are easily learned in the order of the list, but often much harder to remember in another order. With flash cards, you can shuffle the cards and get a different order each time. They are also easy to carry around and pull out in a spare five minutes and go through, learning and reinforcing the vocabulary. You can make a game out of it with your study buddy if you like. some reading kits for children use this method, including the well known Teach Your Baby to Read which worked well in my family.

Never let a day go by without some language practice, including speaking aloud. The constant exposure helps considerably. If you try to spend two mammoth sessions each

week learning a language, rather than doing some every day, your rate of progress will be slower. You are trying to use your total time available in an efficient manner you will recall.

If you can find a native speaker of the language who is a student at the university, you might be able to arrange formal language sessions, on a swap basis, your English for their Chinese, Italian or whatever. It does not matter that they wish to talk and improve at a level much higher than yours. They are not trained teachers, but they can correct pronunciation, tell you what the correct grammar is etc. and it will help you a lot. If you are rich, and few are, you can buy lessons also. Whatever you do, it is better to make it a regular thing, timetabled in, not just every now and then, although anything is better than nothing.

You will ultimately face oral tests and examinations, so that the more you do normally, the more natural and less frightening they will seem. Nerves can play havoc with oral language scores, and the more practice at talking you get now, the better you will score later.

When you get corrected assignments back, examine the corrections carefully. Some find it useful to write out the correct version a few times to drive the lesson home. Saying it out loud is a good habit to develop, as it helps memory and the phrase pattern may start to stick in your mind. Try to understand what the correction means, and why you got it wrong. Work on that point for a few minutes, or hours, to help rectify your weaknesses. Just looking to see if you have passed or failed, or got eight out of ten rather than five out of ten, and feeling pleased or disappointed, does nothing to help you improve.

NOTE TAKING

`Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils.'

(Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare, 1775, preface).

You will need a certain amount of stationery. One or more loose-leaf files, and A4 lined pads, as well as a pen, pencil and ruler will be required at once. You might find a clipboard useful for resting on when taking notes in lectures; many students merely use the A4 pad. A short ruler made of clear plastic is often the most useful, as it can be carried easily and it is possible to see through it. This is handy when drawing diagrams and you wish to keep lines roughly parallel. You should aim to build up only as you need things, so do not rush out and buy a whole kit at once. Ultimately you will probably find you need a stapler and staples, paper clips, white-out, several different coloured pens, some overhead transparencies, special overhead transparency pens (OHT) pens in perhaps three different colours, an eraser, scissors, cellotape, maybe a hole punch, and a cheap calculator. The latter may be a required item in some subjects but is generally

useful to have around anyway.

It often pays to buy the cheapest lined pads for note taking, as the quality of paper for this purpose does not matter a great deal. You might want one pad of better quality paper if you do not type or word-process your assignments. The appearance of a written item that you hand in should be as good as you can reasonably make it. Check the supermarkets for stationery prices, they are often keen, and keep an eye open for sales and items `on special'. If you can afford to do so, you should aim to take notes only on one side of the page. This has the advantage that you can spread out notes on a table and see what you have, without constantly having to turn over and check. If you do not spread out notes, you may be able to use the blank side facing for comments or additions. If you do this, make sure you do not separate the notes or you lose the comments in the appropriate place.

Always put the source of your notes at the top. For lecture notes, you need the name of the subject, lecturer and date for instance. For article notes, you need the title of a book, its author, publisher and place and date of publication. In the case of a journal article, you need the title, author, and name and date (including number) of the journal.

You should always read a chapter, or section through first before starting to take notes. If you do not do this, it is possible that you will start copying out just about everything in the chapter, rather than just the main points that you need.

Some people find the SQ3R system works well. This is an acronym that stands for:

SURVEY or skim through, checking on sub headings and anything in bold or italic print, to get an idea of what will be covered but you do not read the whole thing word for word.

QUESTIONS - which means think up a few questions as a result of the skim reading that you might want to be answered when you read it through properly.

READ through quickly, not stopping to follow detailed arguments in all their intricacies.

RECALL - which means closing the book and trying to think of the main points, perhaps jotting them down on a piece of paper. These can form the basis of your notes if they are good enough.

REVIEW - which means going through the text more slowly and making your notes, either adding to those from the `recall' stage or making new ones if necessary.

It is a good idea to try this SQ3R method a few times and see if it works for you and if so, stick with it. If it does not, or it seems a total waste of your time, then try another method for yourself. As a start, you might drop the recall stage and make your notes on the second reading, after the quick read through. The recall effort works for most people, but

not necessarily for you. Or you might find a totally different way of tackling reading leading to note taking. If so, and it works for you, then use it. Note that it is important not to try a new reading system only once and then give up on it, as all new systems take a little getting used to. Remember the `no pain, no gain' adage and persevere. With practice in using any reading system, you can normally expect to find a significant improvement in your reading skills.

Whatever system you adopt to improve your reading and learning skills, it is virtually always useful to glance over the contents of a new chapter, article or book quickly before settling down to read it properly. When approaching a new topic, it is also very desirable to spend a few minutes early on in the piece, perhaps before you start to read, asking yourself a few questions and what you hope might be included and what you might learn. Cadet journalists are often told to remember `What, who, where, when, why and how' as a basis for interviewing people in order to get the information to write up a story. It is not a complete list for a student, who might also justifiably wonder about things such as `The effects, what do I think, does this clash with other theories or data I have' and so on. Journalists are mostly attempting to report, not to analyse, but their questions might be a starting place. A simple thing like either of these two suggestions can help make the task more interesting and assist you to learn faster. By the way, if you find you cannot get an answer to one or more of your questions, first go and look harder and wider; secondly, discuss possibilities with fellow students; thirdly, you can go and ask a staff member. If you have thought up a brilliant question, do not be surprised if he/she does not know the answer off-hand, but they may be able to find out for you. Fourthly, you just might have produced a great idea for some serious research, and who knows, there could be a Ph.D. in it for you eventually.

Hi-lighting a book is OK as long as you own it - a textbook is not a work of art that must not be desecrated. There are thousands of identical new copies in existence and the book shop will be delighted to sell you another one in pristine condition if you want. Some parents and school teachers will try to persuade you that writing in your book is some obscure form of sin or vice - this is nonsense. In one Woody Allen film he asks a young woman what is the worst crime she could commit when a child in her family; she responds something like `Damaging or marking books, what about in your family?'. Woody Allen, coming from a Jewish family, replies `Buying retail'! The family values of one's youth take a lot of throwing off, even if subsequently judged to have been wrong. Highlighting makes learning quicker and easier, as you can reread the highlighted parts through over and over to learn them. It does on the other hand reduce the second hand value if wish to sell the book next year but which do you put first, learning and succeeding or saving a small amount of money? It is usually a total waste of time to note your text book, unless you find it is the only way to remember the information. It is quicker to highlight and revise by reading over those passages, skipping the less important and unmarked ones. You should never highlight or write in library books of course.

Some believe that highlighting is a waste of time, as if it is important enough to highlight, it should really be in your notes. You can make your own mind up on this. Whatever you

decide, if you highlight you must read and reread the book's highlights to learn the material. If you take notes instead, you must read and reread the notes.

Ask yourself questions as you read - what is the main idea of this part - do it for each paragraph, section and chapter.

Note only the main ideas, nothing else, unless you want an example perhaps. You should try to structure your notes so that they make sense and are easy to read later. If you can write clearly, make every effort to do so as you will find that reading and revision later much easier if you are not poring over scribble and trying to work out what you might have meant. Equally, spilling coffee over the notes is not going to encourage you to read them over later.

When making notes, some people find it convenient to underline subheadings in different colours, e.g., title in red, main headings in black, sub-heads in blue; others might use block capitals for titles, double underlines for main headings and single underlines for sub-heads. It is easy to go to too much trouble on different colours and wind up with a work of art without getting down to studying the contents properly. You should be careful not to become obsessed by appearances. If you can do it quickly and easily and it helps when you read and reread your notes, then fine, you should go ahead.

As part of useful colour coding, some have found that using yellow paper for the notes taken privately from journal articles, books etc., but ordinary white paper for notes taken from the formal timetabled lectures, seminars and the like. The notes can then be filed together by topic etc., with different colours within each topic. This is of value if when revising you can force yourself to read a bit further than you otherwise would and `finish the yellow pages too', but it may be more trouble than it is worth for others. Try it if you like, but discard it should it seem not worthwhile in your case.

Some people find using an inset system for major and minor points is better. After the centred main heading, often uppercase (capital letters), the first heading is placed at the margin and the next sub-heading gets stepped in, maybe by a centimetre as the importance decreases. It is back to the margin for the next main heading and so on. Too little inset for sub-headings makes it hard to see the relative importance and learn the notes; too much inset wastes paper. If you have a choice it is usually better to err on the side of a little wasted paper and inset by a bit more rather than not learn properly. With this general point in mind, do not try to write too small in order to save paper, and do not try to cram in too much at the end of lines or at the bottom of a page which makes it hard to read easily.

When insetting notes, you will find that using a computer word processing package allows you to set tabs for jumping across the page very easily. An example of the inset system is:

THE OPIUM WARS

WHY DID THEY START?

Colonial expansion- Nineteenth century practice

. started with ....

. others followed suit in....- including....

- Industrial revolution in Britain. began in Eighteenth Century in agriculture. then into industry

- textiles important...Balance of payments problems

- Britain takes Indian tea to sell in China...

THE EARLY RESPONSE OF CHINA

.... and so on.

(End of example)

Note that this example uses upper case and lower case as well as the dot-dash method, which you might find useful. You can start with either dots or dashes as you prefer, -they are your notes after all. Many politicians speaking from notes tend to use this dot-dash system, along with larger typeface than normal, so that they can glance down and find their place easily.

You will note that using a dot-dash method does not require a numbering system such as the common one of:

I.A.

1.a.

(1).(a).

(i).

The dot-dash method is also an alternative to the `legal' system of:

1.0 1.11.1.1 1.2.11.2.1.1 ... etc.

Both the common method and legal method can be used in written assignments that are to be handed in for marking, but the dot-dash method is strictly to be used for your own notes.

It is possible to combine the underlining, inset, and dot-dash system if you find that useful when note taking.

With lecture notes you should take only the main points and of course all diagrams or figures that the lecturer puts up. Your lecture notes should be more of a skeleton outline than a full script of what the lecturer said, word for word. As you take the notes, leave enough room for your comments and anything else you might want to add later. Read up the notes as soon as possible after taking them, and try to put them into your head as you do this. If you let too long pass before reading them, you are likely to lose the information and have to start again. It should be a habit to read your lecture notes the same day you take them, and at least once more the next day. Early reinforcement is an excellent thing, so you should try to make this a habit.

It helps to compare your notes from a lecture with those of someone else - perhaps a close friend, or someone in your study group. You will often be surprised at what you felt was important, relative to them. You can often improve your notes in this way by combining any important points you find. You should, of course, try to find someone who is bright and takes good notes, rather than someone who either copies down everything including jokes, or else notes almost nothing. Perhaps your entire study group could pool notes to improve them. Whatever happens, do not start to miss lectures and rely on such pooled notes to get you through. It is far too dangerous, and you have already missed a part of the learning process by not hearing the lecture personally.

It is usually a waste of your time copying out lecture notes that you have already taken -it is far more important that you read and learn them, than to copy them out again. There are two exceptions to this. The first is if you wish to put your notes as they are onto a computer via a word processing package. If you find it easier to read your notes in typescript form, either on screen or printed out, then it may be worth spending some time entering them up. The second occasion is more valuable generally. It pays to rework or redo your notes, rearranging them, adding arrows, circles, boxes, dotted lines, shadings, or whatever makes sense to you, to get a better looking and more pictorial set of notes. Even little pictures or cartoons can help, as long as you do not spend much time on them. Keep in mind that it is not the essential prettiness of the notes that is important to you, only what you learn from revising them constantly.

The reason for making your notes more interesting to look at is that when you read and reread your notes, if they are distinctive they will be more easily remembered. If each page looks a bit different, it will be more easily recalled to the mind's eye. In other words, you will learn your notes better. Try this and see if it works for you. If you learn better from straight forward text notes, then you are lucky and can save yourself time.

If you have a small cassette recorder, you might consider taping your lectures, to review

later and help sort out any gaps or strange looking parts of the notes you took at the time. Such recordings are not a substitute for attending lectures, because many lecturers put up key words or important ideas on the screen or blackboard as they talk, which helps you to sort out the more important from the less. If they used diagrams, it is rarely possible to understand a tape that refers to a diagram that you cannot see. If you do decide to tape lectures, it is considered polite to come up and ask the lecturer first, rather than just poking a machine under the person's nose and walking off. After the first time, you do not need to ask further permission of course. You might find that the First year is already being taped by the university - ask in the first lecture if you are not sure. If this is the case, the lecture tape is placed in the library, but it may take a day or two before it gets there, so you should not race down an hour or two later unless disappointment turns you on.

If you are listening to a taped lecture, it is usually better to listen to the whole lecture through once before starting to take notes. This improves your note taking efficiency and tends to produce better notes. It is not a waste of time doing this; it is a desirable investment of your valuable time. Naturally this listening through once is not necessary if you attended the lecture yourself, took notes there, and still recorded it. If you have a specific question or two, like `What did he define literature as?' or `What did he say about the diagram, I was too busy copying it to listen properly', then you can skip through the tape looking for that particular part.

When actually taking notes, it is a good idea to use abbreviations as much as possible. There are many standardized ones that can save you writing more and in this way help avoid a sore wrist. Useful reasonably standard abbreviations include:

> more than< less than= equals≠ not equals∴φ4 τ ηερεφορε_ becausee.g. for examplei.e. that is; that is to sayk kilogram, kilometreTU. trade unionCf. comparisonfig. figureDiag. diagramibid. in the same book or passage (used in footnotes)loc. cit. at the place quoted (used in footnotes)ms. or mss. manuscriptop. cit. in the work cited (used in footnotes)passim throughout the whole work, rather than in one

chapterPC personal computer; politically correct; police

constablePM Prime Minister; afternoon (usually p.m.)

Very many more abbreviations can be used, depending on your particular needs.

Many abbreviations are connected with publishing or footnoting and you will find them, and more, when reading articles and books. Whenever you find an abbreviation that you could not explain to someone else, you should make a note to check it later in your dictionary.

You can also invent your own abbreviations, as long as you do not forget them. Try to make them intuitively obvious. In economics, for example, I personally use small `q' for quality and big `Q' for quantity, `S&D' for supply and demand, `raw mats' for raw materials, `govt' for government, and `lab' for labour.

Your notes will come from different sources, perhaps including the radio or TV as well as the more normal books and journal articles. They are all most usefully kept grouped with like material or topic, rather than by source. In this way when you come to reread or learn, you get all the material you have on that topic. When introduced to a new theory or concept in a lecture, you might find it useful to go off and look up several different explanations of it in different books, including encyclopedias and specialist dictionaries of that topic. If you take notes from these, you can insert them in the proper place, using your ring binder. Do not duplicate, but aim to understand the concept, add new examples, get a better set of words if you can and so on.

With diagrams, you must practice drawing them for yourself. It pays to read the text sentence by sentence and examine each statement it makes by looking at the diagram. Make sure you understand the diagram and what is said about it. Then draw it for yourself. You should practice drawing all important diagrams until you can do them by heart - every day you should draw at least one and then check it against the textbook. The importance of drawing and redrawing the diagrams that your lecturers show you cannot be over- stressed.

Figure 0 The Free Form Method of Note Taking

If you wish to take notes from group discussions, workshops and the like, then there is one useful way of setting them out which is very different from your ordinary note taking method. This other way is a free form method and you do it by first writing the subject name in the middle of the page and then radiating lines out as you need, drawing one for each main point as shown.

This method suits the free flowing nature of group discussions and new points can easily be added, even if lines have to be stretched further along the page. You can loop new lines around old boxes etc. easily too, and show linkages using arrows (perhaps in a different colour, or using dotted lines).

Some students in a fit of rejoicing at successfully getting through the year have been known to destroy their notes with a certain amount of glee. This is not a good idea. It is definitely useful to keep your notes when you move into the second and later years, as you might suddenly find you need to look up something you covered earlier and cannot quite remember fully. It is easier to look up well-kept notes quickly than have to go off to the library and start searching for and relearning, including note taking, something you have already covered earlier. You can also see the waste of time involved in duplicating your work.

If you have to cross out part of your notes, it is usually wise to use a single diagonal slash to do this, and to keep the crossed out notes filed properly where they were. If you ever do need to refer to them and decide that they were not that bad, you will still be able to read them.

The most important thing about your notes is that you read and reread them, so that you know the material contained in them. This includes any criticisms of the major viewpoints you may have been given, found for yourself, or thought of. The material has to go into your head. It is a sheer waste of time to make notes and then ignore them for the rest of your life. You do not learn much simply by amassing piles of notes and you learn nothing at all by merely owning them or carrying them around under your arm during the day. You cannot learn by osmosis. You must read your notes and think carefully about what you are reading. Far too many students fall into the habit of making notes then not reading them again - please do not be one of them.

FILES AND FILING

`Prisoners and students can both make good use of files.'

The most convenient way to take lecture and other notes and carry them around during that day is in a ring binder. Make sure that you put your name and Faculty on the front, so that if you lose them and they are handed in, they will go to the correct Faculty Office. One such file for every-day use is virtually essential.

A set of file dividers for your daily use file, so that you can separate the different subjects that you are studying. Some people find keeping lecture notes separate from other sources of notes a good idea but most do not seem to think it useful. Do it which ever way works best for you. It is generally best to file all your notes in the appropriate subject section at once and not leave them laying around to be lost or have coffee tipped over them.

For more permanent note keeping you can choose a normal size ring binder for each subject, a fatter version of the same sort of file, or a lever arch file. The last two hold a

great deal more, but you have to manipulate the actual notes a bit more by sliding them across the longer metal hoop. This tends to tear the holes in the paper and eventually a few pages tend to come lose and, not being fastened in, can get lost. If this happens, you can buy reinforcing paper rings that glue around the enlarged or split hole, and you can keep the page safely fastened down again.

In the beginning, you might find that one binder will suffice for all your subjects, and you can separate each subject by using cardboard interleaves that can be purchased, but it will probably not be long before you need more binders.

It is a good idea to choose a different coloured binder for each subject, as it makes finding what you need much easier. Later on you might have quite a lot of different files and if all the same colour, it takes time going through them and reading the front to see what subject it is.

File dividers are also useful within your subject files, so that you can locate major topics easily. The handout that gives you the subject outline often provides a useful set of headings, but do not be afraid to change these or merge/split some of them if you find that one or two sections are swelling rapidly while others remain thin.

Envelope files, or wallet files, are thin cardboard files shaped rather like a large envelope. You can fold over the front to prevent your notes and bits of paper falling out. They are very useful for carrying around loose pages, newspaper cuttings and the like, as it is not easy to lose items. You might choose to use one of these on a daily basis, rather than a ring file. They can be used for permanent filing at home but are a trifle expensive for that purpose.

Cheap fold-over files can be bought and these are more sensible for permanent filing for most people. These fold-over files are designed to put loose papers in, and the whole thing then placed in a hanging file in a filing cabinet. They are pretty hopeless for carrying around, as a piece of loose paper can easily fall out, especially if there are several papers of varying sizes. They are however very good for storing things such as newspaper clippings at home. Write the subject name on the top front, so that it can be read when it is standing upright.

Note that you may not have to keep buying the cheap fold-over files, as they can often be recycled. If you have combined some of your notes, or discarded some, and have an empty fold-over file with a name on the outside, do not throw it out. You can reuse the fold-over files easily by turning them around and writing the new subject matter on what becomes the new front. Later you can recycle them again, by turning them inside out, for two more goes. After than you are down to using white-out or sticking paper over the old title to change the subject matter title. This is usually cheaper than buying new files.

Rather than buying an expensive filing cabinet, a cardboard box works well for standing fold-over files in. You can buy tailor-made ones designed for storing A4 size files but you can probably find a free box into which your files will fit reasonably well in the front

part of supermarkets. Take a folder with you to check on the best sized box for your needs. You can ask a check out person or the front end manager if you can have a few boxes, and they are usually only too glad to get rid of them.

Box files are roughly what they say - a sort of empty box that closes up. Lawyers sometimes use them for filing things. Old large sized breakfast cereal boxes with the top cut off, or part of the front cut away, might serve you just as well. As long as you like eating cereals, they cost you nothing. Proper box files are not cheap.

Card index files are going out of fashion, rendered obsolete by technology. They were once used to keep details of books, such as author, title, publisher and date, one card for one book, and filed upright in little boxes. The arrival of personal computers (PCs) has rendered card index files out of date for all but the most conservative people. A PC with a data base is a far superior filing method and allows easy editing, cross-referencing and virtually instantaneously retrieval. The old card index files involve a lot of tedious searching and either no cross referencing, or else a time consuming and rather cumbersome system to make it work. Even then they do not work too well.

Generally with filing, you will find that you start with an easy system, e.g., one file for each subject, and this rapidly becomes out of date. You will find that you need to increase the detailed nature of your filing system quite regularly and as you learn more about a topic, your filing system will also probably need some alteration. Naturally, as the years go by and you begin to study more disciplines or subjects, you will need to add to your existing filing system. It pays to keep an eye on your system and occasionally refine it when it becomes worth the effort.

LEARNING

`Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.'

(B.B. Skinner, New Scientist, 21 May 1964).

I cannot over-emphasis the importance of learning your notes by constantly rereading them. Information and knowledge are the basis you need for subsequent critical evaluation. When going through a textbook or reading a journal article, you should try to understand it and then question what you understand. It is desirable to read critically but you should never reject a viewpoint or idea merely because it is new, differs from something you already believe, or differs from what your friends, parents, or lecturers say. In particular, do not reject something because it seems difficult and you cannot understand it. If you encounter this situation, it means you must work harder at it. Read it through several times. If it is the textbook that is causing you trouble, try one or two different textbooks to see how they explain the point, as things often seem easier if put in

a different way. You might also find a Dictionary of Economics (politics or whatever interests you) helpful, as such books summarise ideas in a short space using simple words.

A good way of learning is to read something, note (or underline) the major points, then go off and explain what the main points are to some friend. An effort to teach something focuses your attention on the subject, really reinforces the information in your memory, and also reveals to you any weak areas of your knowledge. Your small study group is a good outlet for this approach.

Condensing or reducing your notes is a good thing to do: the process reinforces the information and helps to fix it in your head. In addition, the shorter summary version can be read more quickly and learned more easily. Some students find that it helps to reduce the summary down to several key words, in the same order as the more full notes, then learn them. Bringing back the list of key words then helps them to recall the fuller notes.

Try to learn something each day. Notice that you have no school homework to do and need to rely upon yourself to study and learn.

It is not possible to study continually without a break and it is not an efficient use of your time to try to do so. Many people find that the optimal period for them to study is somewhere between three quarters of an hour and an hour and a half. After that, their concentration reduces and they get less out of what they are doing. Try to discover your own optimal time and make use of the information. After the hour's study (or whatever), you should try to do something different for say ten or twenty minutes, e.g., have a cup of coffee, dig the garden, or polish the furniture - it is a good time to do those short domestic tasks that need doing but which seem to get overlooked a lot. Then after this break, you can go back to the studying refreshed.

If you take a coffee break, especially when at the University, try to keep it down to ten minutes or so. It is easy to sit talking with fellow students and persuade oneself that one is really working and in this way waste much of ones' day. If you are in the middle of a discussion of an academic topic of interest, then that really can be considered to be work. However, casual observation suggests that such debates in the common rooms seem to be a lot rarer than the habit of socialising. Some justify this as `networking'. Always remember that you are responsible for using your time in the most productive way. You get the rewards for doing this successfully, and conversely you get the pain for failure.

It is often useful to set aside a short period every day to read over your recent notes, do some revision of a subject (a different one each day) and to practice drawing diagrams. Perhaps half-an-hour after breakfast, or before dinner/supper would suit you. Try to find the time that fits your routine the best. Some students find that reading the textbook in bed last thing at night helps. Firstly, it helps many people to remember something if it is the last thing read before sleep; secondly, the habit often proves a great cure for insomnia!

There are certain things that can help you study more effectively and others that can reduce your capacity. It is worth spending a little time considering this, as you have three years over which to make your gains, so that an hour or two of thought now plus a little experiment would be a good investment. Such things as the conditions of the room you are in, the time of day, your ability to relax, and the degree of emptiness of your stomach, can significantly affect your learning progress.

The choice of where you study is often dictated by circumstances. If you share a house, then it is likely to be your bedroom, as the rest of the house may be noisy or offer too many distractions. Even here you have choices: do you manage best sitting at a desk or table, lounging in a comfortable chair, or lying on the bed? If the others are out, the kitchen or living area is available and again you have choices.

Equally when you are on campus between lectures, you are constrained by limited time and must study close by. Possible venues include the library, the lawn, under various trees, the Refectory (outside lunch time), Common Rooms (if quiet enough) and, if you can find one, an empty class room. You should consider such alternatives, and decide which fit your personality best.

The majority of people seem to study best in a quiet room on their own, one which is well lit for reading, and is at a reasonable temperature. Some on the other hand find that music in the background helps them to study. If you are like this, then by all means play music. Should you find it distracting, then turn it off, and listen to it in the breaks you take between study sessions. If you are sharing accommodation, be mindful of the others who may not like noise when they are studying. A Walkman or other source of sound equipped with earphones may be a solution that satisfies everyone. Should you be working where you are subject to intermittent noise, which is often more disturbing than a constant one, as this can be tuned out eventually, then quiet regular music through earphones might be preferable to the shock of outside major disturbances. Few work well with a TV set on, unless it is playing background music, and almost no one can do so if they are sitting where they can see the screen.

It is desirable to develop a study pattern or habit, know your favourite places and how best to arrange your books, note pad etc. around you so that you feel comfortable and at home. Some people find they work best in a library if they always sit in the same area. It is best not to develop a strong affection for one particular seat, without which you worry or fidget, as it will definitely be occupied by someone else on occasion. Equally you should be prepared to study under conditions that are far from the best for you, learning to close your mind and ears to your environment. An hour's study under what you regard as poor conditions is better than no study at all.

You might usefully consider the question of what time of day you study the best: are you essentially a night person or a day person? Some people work well until late in the evening and even after midnight. Others seem to work better in the morning. If you wake up naturally at, say, around five a.m., do not complain and think you are an insomniac. People vary a lot and not everyone require eight hours sleep. Some of the

famous people in history managed on less than five hours a night, e.g., Zhou Enlai and Groucho Marx. Those who require little sleep have more time to work and succeed. It is useful to work out when you do not study well - everyone tends to have periods of low natural activity during the day, although the actual time varies between individuals. Your slack time may, for instance, be between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. If so, you might find it better not to try study then, but use it for relaxation purposes.

If you can quickly relax from tension, you will do better in the long run. Many people find it refreshing to have a short nap, or meditation session, if you have learned how, in the early afternoon, before tackling the rest of the day. There are various relaxation techniques around, and just about all of them seem to work. You should not feel that you are a bit weird if you decide to adopt one. Your health and work can only improve. Modern society is full of pressures and human beings have had little experience of coping with them. The industrial revolution only began last century, but we have been around for considerably longer than that.

Taking a nap or relaxing deliberately can get you the equivalent of the energy of two mornings in a day, rather than a comatose afternoon. The summer can be enervating and it is easy not to notice a gradual diminution of energy. Few people who are gradually slowing down are able to monitor their own decline. It is better to work for an exhilarating productive ten hours than for a tired, semi-switched off twelve hours.

Some find they work better if they have a glass of milk, or a biscuit to nibble, but beware of leaving an open pack within reach. The next thing you know it could be empty. No one studies better with alcohol, although a few might feel they do.

Many students find it helpful to look at the end of each chapter of their set textbook, or a different textbook if necessary, where there are often questions for discussion or typical questions about the material of the chapter. They then try to answer them. Even as little as ten minutes each day can be very helpful, thinking about the issue, and jotting down what you can recall or can think of, then checking back with the text itself to see how well you did. Preparing a short skeleton answer is perhaps the best method. You can file these skeletons, after adding to them if needs be, by checking the textbook, along with your notes for that topic. If you are a member of a self-organised study group, you can compare notes and discuss discrepancies, and this practice will reinforce the learning process.

Getting hold of old exam papers and trying them in this way is also valuable, especially towards the end of a semester when exams approach. If you try this early in the semester, do not be put off if you find questions that seem to make little sense or which you cannot answer. It is probable that you have not yet covered that topic, so do not worry. You will be able to deal with such questions later on. It seems to be counter-productive for some students, especially those inclined to anxiety, to try to answer exam questions early in the course; others benefit greatly from the experience. Try it for yourself: if it does not seem to matter much to you, then you should definitely try to answer old exam papers, rough

out skeleton answers to old essay questions and the like, because learning from doing is valuable.

If you are finding it hard to settle down to read a text, you might find that you can ease in to the task and develop enthusiasm by doing some study-related task first. File yesterday's notes, look over last week's lecture notes, sort out your briefcase or whatever you carry things around in that gets cluttered up - there are many tasks that will help you anyway, but can serve to force your mind into studying mode. Another way of getting down to study when you may not feel like it is to allocate, say, five minutes and sit down to think about what you want out of university, the reasons you came, and the sort of interesting jobs that you will be able to apply for when you have your degree. If you find that doing this stimulates your motivation, then you have a useful way of kick-starting your work. You might find yet a different way that works for you - if so, I would appreciate you passing on the tip to me, so that future students can try it and see if it will work for them. Whatever you do, you should not moon around thinking you should be working but not actually starting to do so. Jump in quickly. If you have an odd job to do, maybe wash up, buy some milk, or tidy your room - don't! Start to study and when you need a break, stop and do the job then. If you find you tend to do such odd jobs first, as likely as not, the mind is simply trying to stop you studying as for many people it would seem to be a lazy organ. Ask yourself who is in charge here and start to discipline it. It may seem odd to you to think of your mind as a separate entity, but such displacement activity often happens and you can start work if you really try.

If you have much studying to do and a good length of time to do it in, like a whole day or even a week, then sometimes the task seems daunting. Some students will sit and think about what they have to do, and start to despair, rather than really doing it. If this ever happens to you, it is a good idea to divide the task into segments, then allocate the time into segments. You can then see that you will work 9-10 a.m., stop for coffee until 10.20, then work again until 11.30 a.m. and so forth. It often helps to give yourself a little reward for achieving things - like the coffee rather than just stopping studying. Knowing something nice is coming at the end can be surprisingly stimulating and an incentive to continue. You will probably also find that when you have been taking notes for an hour, it helps to take a break. When you return to studying after a break, it may be helpful to do a different job for a while, such as filing the notes, or reading and amending them, or perhaps thinking about the next segment and planning out what you might do in it. This different task is useful to you, so is not a waste, but it makes a short break from what you have been doing previously.

If you have a complex task to do and much time to do it in, then it usually helps to break the task down into several chunks, each one of which then seems manageable. Spending ten minutes doing this as a way of getting into the task can make the whole thing seem easier and indicate to you the most rewarding ways to tackle the job, as well as perhaps revealing the intrinsic ways into which the project, or whatever it is, might be broken down. Do not forget to give yourself a little reward for completing a predetermined part of the whole, which gives you something to look forward to.

One important thing to bear in mind when studying, is that you should be doing it conscientiously. This means concentrating properly for the whole study period, and avoiding distractions. You may find that you have to work at concentrating at first, but it does get easier as you practise. If you find that people interrupt, and come up to chatter while you are studying, it is a good idea to suggest you meet for tea etc. at a specified time, rather than spend ten minutes talking, then find your concentration has gone and you have to work hard to get back to where you were earlier. Although I do not recommend reducing the length of time spent studying, if a friend does interrupt you and it looks like upsetting your concentration, then it might pay to stop at once and go for the tea. As long as you keep the time away reasonably brief, you might get more effective concentrated study that way. This is particularly so if you are nearing the end of your hour or so study session and are tired anyway.

Human beings find it easier to remember the things that they feel are really important to them. This has to be the case. If we were able to remember everything there is a danger that information overload would cause the brain to seize up and close down - we would go mad, in some sense of that word. It is surprisingly difficult to define what `mad' means, and few specialists will be pinned down on that subject. If we remembered nothing, we could not function and would die. If we forgot at every meal time in which orifice we should put the food, imagine the result. So we select from the huge number of things we see, do, hear, smell, taste, read and touch each day, and store them in a part of the brain we can more easily get at for later recall.

After the degree of importance to us, comes `interesting'. Way down on the list comes `boring' but at least that is ahead of `useless'. You probably noticed at school that teachers who were interesting made the topic seem easier and more important and you liked the subject more and remembered the subject matter better. From a practical point of view, at university, this means you have to develop a state of mind that regards your course work as important and interesting. The topic may be interesting, even if the teacher or article is boring. You many need to keep reminding yourself of this fact. This effort can help you to increase your motivation, the importance of which it is hard to over- stress.

If you have a large chunk of time in which to study, say a morning or an evening, then it is often better to spend it on two or three different study tasks, or study related tasks, in order to give yourself a break. For most people it seems to be more productive to study, say, economics for an hour, switch to learning Chinese vocabulary for an hour, relax with a non-alcoholic drink for fifteen minutes, then spend the last three quarters of an hour revising their history notes. This is better than trying to devote three straight hours to one subject without a break.

If you have a spare ten or twenty minutes, try to use that time to do one short task, e.g., read, review and think about the lecture notes taken yesterday. Making use of small amounts of spare time is a valuable way of improving performance. Because the mind is fresh and knows that the process will shortly be over, it seems to take things in quickly and you might find you remember them better. If you do this in unusual places, e.g.,

leaning against the inside of the front door, it is often amazing how recalling leaning on the door can bring back the details of what you were studying at the time. I do not recommend that you continually look for new places, but make use of them as you find them. After all, if you go round the house seeking new places to work, eventually they will all become your normal place. It is using the ten minutes productively that really counts.

If you travel by bus to and from university, this is an excellent time to review notes, plan out an essay, memorize definitions etc. Staring out the window at the same old view will not help your progress anywhere near as much.

Some students find it helpful to use the last half hour or so of their study day, which is usually in the later evening, to go over everything that they did during that day, reading the notes taken, the ideas jotted down, or essay written. This not only serves to help you to remember what you have done, it also shows you that you have accomplished things and you can feel happy that you are progressing and achieving something. It can be an antidote to feelings of anxiety, depression or `the blues'.

One important and often missed way of improving your learning is to read carefully the comments on your essays made by the marker. These are far more important to you than the actual mark, although it is tempting to grab the returned paper and search for the mark or grade urgently, and then feel elated, satisfied, unhappy, or downright miserable once it is found.

When reading the comments on a paper, you must avoid any feeling of sadness, depression, or resentment. It is the easiest thing to feel hurt, when the essay or other assignment comes back covered in red ink, and containing several wounding remarks. After the initial cold shock has swept over you and abated somewhat, sit down and tell yourself, `This helps me; I now know what to do to improve', or some such phrase. It may help if you say it three times. What you are trying to do is put your mind out of `hurt mode' into `receptive learning mode' and make use of the comments.

The mark reflects the assessor's judgement of that piece of work and it is over and done with. The comments on the other hand offer help to you that can improve your future performance. It might help you to think up, say, three things you could do to tackle the specific weak spots identified by the criticisms, write them down, then do them. Keep the note to yourself on file, either with the relevant topic, or in a section of its own, called something like `Improvements' or `To do'; whatever feels good and will also encourage you to action is the best name for you to use. Refer to this section regularly and keep trying to tackle the weaknesses. Do not just file your lists of comments and suggestions for improvement and then forget them. If one or two markers make similar comments, e.g., `not enough evidence to justify that conclusion' you now know what one of your major problems is, and it suggests strongly that you should address it when writing an assignment in future. If it helps, make a list of the comments, and pin it up where you can see it easily where you write your work. This will act as a reminder when you are preparing an assignment to plug your personal defects and improve your average

performance.

Whenever you cannot read the staff member's comments owing to poor handwriting (a not uncommon occurrence), then go and see the person in his/her office hours. Take the essay with you, and ask them to decipher their comments for you. You can also seize this opportunity and ask if they can suggest ways around the problems they have identified.

Learn as you go. Do not wait until just before exams and then try to swot up. You are at university to learn and use the information, to widen your mind and horizons, to enjoy the intellectual stimulation, to struggle with the new and come to terms with it. You are not trying to fool the teachers now, if you once were, nor are you here just to get a degree.

6 PREPARING AND PRESENTING ASSIGNMENTS

If you find it difficult to write an essay, see the Essay Councillor if your Faculty has one. The Faculty of Asian and International Studies has managed to maintain their support in this area, despite difficulties with Government funding.

Never write your assignments in note form but always write properly in good English, using sentences and paragraphs.

Never just put down all you know, but try to deal with the question set. A commonly seen and reasonable approach is to discuss the pros and cons of the issue and then sum up, but whether it is always a good way rather depends on the particular question asked. If you are asked to support a view, or criticise it, then that is what you must do.

In the text, when referring to numbers, it is normal to write out `four' rather than `4' and so on. Generally, the numbers 0-9 are usually written out as a word. You should observe this practice. With numbers higher than nine, you are often better off still spelling out the number. In a sentence, `42' looks stark and upsets the flow in a way that `forty-two' does not.

There are three occasions when numbers can themselves appear in the text. The first is where the sentence is clearly intended to pass on the numerical information and there are therefore a lot of numbers in the one sentence. Putting the figures in makes it easier to understand and also stops the sentence from getting too long.

The second occasion is where you intend to use decimal points, in which case the numbers have to appear, as it looks silly to write out `fifty-seven point five per cent' instead of `57.5 per cent'. Notice that `per cent' is two words, not one, and the `%' mark is not normally used in a sentence, even after a number, but `per cent' is written out in full. Within a table you can use `%' as it is short and fits in more easily. You should never mix numbers and full words in the same sentence as it looks very odd. For example, `The survey showed that 10 per cent of the population travel seventy per cent of

their journeys by car, but only twenty per cent spent more than 30 minutes in the car'.

The third occasion is when the numbers involved are large - usually over one hundred. It may look a bit strange to write out `two hundred and seventy-six' rather than `276', and is definitely odd to write out `three thousand, four hundred and fifty-five' in words.

While on the subject of numbers, note that a hyphen is used with numbers like `thirty-six' and `ninety-nine'; do not write `thirty six', or even worse `thirtysix' in your assignments.

A commonly asked question about an essay or examination answer is `How long should it be?'. With set projects, the expected length is often indicated (1200 words, 3000 words or the like) and you can work out how many pages of your handwriting this is. With typescript and double spacing you get about 275 words to a page, depending on the particular words you use and the type size. With exam questions, it is more difficult. In answer to the question `How long should the answer be' the best answer is really `As long as it takes' but this is not a lot of help. Perhaps a helpful answer might be that a typical examination answer might be longer than one side of A4 paper, but shorter than six pages, with many students commonly writing about three or four pages. It does depend on you, your writing style and so forth; doubtless John Maynard Keynes could have written 20 excellent pages on one economics question or alternatively done it brilliantly and succinctly in half a page. Only if you judge yourself his equal should you try to emulate him on either length.

Always remember that when you are presented with an idea, model, or ideology, first you understand it, then learn it, after which you can subject it to critical review. If you think of a criticism as you are reading, jot it down at once on paper, and examine it later, once you understand what the person is saying exactly. When presenting an argument, it is often good to give the standard cases first, before you move to present something of yourself with your own criticisms and any original contribution you have to make. Whether this is appropriate in any particular case depends on the question as well as on how you think it could best be tackled.

You need to be critical about what you read. There are often disagreements between specialists so that you are unable to accept everything at face value. Knowledge advances by rejecting what was once believed to be true and replacing it with a later version. New theories and models emerge, eventually to be replaced in their turn. Some believe that perhaps half of what you read in a textbook is wrong, but unfortunately no one yet knows which half.

When writing an essay, you should have an Introduction, a Main Body, and a Conclusion. The Introduction and Conclusion should agree with each other, and must never be mutually contradictory. The Introduction is usually the best place to get rid of all your definitions and maybe indicate the scope of the answer, i.e., what you have chosen to cover and perhaps why.

You must use paragraphs; and each new idea needs its own paragraph usually. It is often

desirable to use headings and sub-headings to `signpost' where you are and what you are doing. It also clearly reveals the internal logic of your organisational powers.

Watch your spelling and grammar and make sure all your sentences are really are sentences. Most sentences have a subject - verb - object construction, e.g., `The dog bit the cat' where `dog' is the subject (noun), the verb is `bit', and `cat' is the object. If you have doubts about this, or are not sure what, for example, a verb is, consult a good high school book on English grammar. Any reasonable computer word processing program will have a spelling checker and a good one may have a grammar checker - use them if you have them. Notice that it is becoming common to use the American spelling of `program' when referring to computers. Remember never to use abbreviations in assignments, other than the most standard ones. Even then, some prefer you to write `for example' than `e.g.'. Generally you should save your abbreviations for note taking, where they belong.

Avoid using `etc.' at the end of a list of items. It looks sloppy, suggesting to the reader that either the list is incomplete or you have not thought through exactly what you wish to say. Such an impression does not endear you, nor gain you marks. It is better to put a phrase such as `including', `for example' or `such as' in front of the list.

Remember that your answer needs information and content, logical organisation, and perhaps a theme (if appropriate to the question), as well as a consistency of approach. You should footnote all data, statistics, views that are associated with a particular person, and quotations used.

If you use diagrams in an essay, draw them carefully using a ruler and ink. In the exam room, you can usually get away with free hand drawings if they are neat. Colours can help sometimes. If you have a simple diagram, then one colour is always best as it tends to look silly if you mix three colours and only four lines. At the most, you should use, say, black and two other colours, unless the diagram is ultra-complicated and obviously requires more. Most diagrams are fairly simple, even if they seem complicated to you when you first encounter them. If you pepper a diagram with half a dozen colours and make it look like a work of art, it tends to make the observer feel that a) you have wasted time that could better be spent on analysis and explanation; and b) you perhaps have little to say of importance and are trying to conceal the fact by doing pretty diagrams.

You should if possible type or word process your assignments, and you should double space the text. This makes it easier to read, pleases the marker, and allows more room for comments. A happier marker is a more generous marker - or at least an unhappy one is less likely to be sympathetic to things like a dubious but not absolutely incorrect assertion. Double spacing encourages the marker to note ideas and suggestions throughout your text, and in this way you tend to get more written comments or response. It is traditional to send all manuscripts to publishers and journals in double space, so academics are used to seeing it in this form and indeed rather like it. This monograph would normally be printed in double space, but that would have unnecessarily increased the price to you, so it is single spaced for cheapness.

If you must put in handwritten assignments, you can either double space, which tends to look a bit odd and may look like wasting space, or single space it and leave extra wide margins for comments. But please remember that handwritten assignments do not impress as much, which may mean you have to work that extra bit harder to get the same mark.

If you cannot type using all your fingers, you are strongly advised to learn now. If you already use or buy a computer, you will find that touch typing can always be faster than `hunt and peck' methods. Most of us know people who have developed a quite remarkable speed as two finger typists, but they could do even better if they ever learn to type properly. It is easy to obtain a computer program that will teach you to type, either through the University or cheaply through Shareware. In 1994, the ITS Faculty can supply a programme called `Typequick' for $15 for DOS or the Mac or $20 for Windows. You can also find advertisements for typing tutors in computer magazines. Some of the packages have a fun typing game that encourages you to practise. This can be important, as learning to type does require a lot of practice and improving your speed can only seriously be done by undertaking such typing lessons. Most of the computer typing programs also analyse your weak points and have the ability to throw up tests that focus on what you need to practice the most. This is a vast improvement on the old-time night classes where one sat in a room and hammered away on a heavy clunky manual machine that had been retired from serious business, while someone walked around and kept an eye on things.

If you are just learning to type, you ought to be aware that after each sentence you should put two spaces, not the usual one. In addition, if you single-space your assignments, then you must leave a double space between paragraphs. If however you double-space your assignments, as you should, then you do not need to put two double spaces between paragraphs, only one.

On a computer it is easier because you can start by telling the computer to double-space automatically as you type. This saves you effort. If you change your mind later, you can easily go back to the beginning and tell the computer to triple-space, or single-space, as you think best and it alters it immediately.

Do get your assignments in on time. You lose marks for being late and in addition, once you fall behind your study and writing schedule it will be difficult to catch up. When this happens, everything tends to become late on the domino principle, and so you are giving away marks needlessly. If this happens, resist the temptation to copy someone else's work (see Plagiarism below). In addition to the possibility of being punished, in the long term you will know less, and your grades will suffer.

If things get desperately out of hand and you find that you have an essay due almost immediately what can you do? You can ask for an extension if you have a good excuse. Not being able to organise your time better is not usually acceptable as an excuse. The danger here is that if you are given a week's grace this will probably cut into the time you

need to prepare another future assignment, so that you can fall into a cycle of always being behind and needing to grovel with excuses. It is far better to try to work a bit ahead of where you need to be, which means that if anything goes wrong you can still meet the deadline. The person with a safety margin can relax a bit. One way is to set yourself a personal deadline a few days before the official one. You could try colour coding in your diary; say using green for your personal deadline and red for the official one, which might help you. Such a system is operative in almost all large private firms and the public service as tasks are passed down the line, so that you are also developing a skill that is likely to prove valuable later. Another way is to try harder, either by working longer hours, more evenings, and more of the weekends, or work more effectively in future.

If, despite all efforts, you can neither gain an extension nor prepare a quality piece of work in time, with continuous assessment it is always better to put in a poor piece of work, perhaps staying up all the night before in order to prepare and write it, rather than not to submit anything. Even a bad piece of work is likely to get you some marks, whereas a non-submission can earn you nothing at all. If the item is worth, say, 20 per cent of the total marks, then a non-submission means that you are being marked out of a maximum of only 80 per cent, which makes it much harder for you.

Putting in an item but not getting a good mark is sometimes better than non-submission for another reason. It looks better if in the future you should be in the sad position of being a border line pass/fail case; if you can be seen not to have submitted items, the committee is likely to be most unimpressed with your general efforts, which might mean they are less sympathetic to your case.

ESSAY PREPARATION

`Good preparation can save much perspiration.'

A good method of starting is to read the title carefully and spend some time thinking about what it might mean, how many parts it might be divided into, how it might be tackled. Many questions fall into a very few groups. You will often be given two points, A and B, and the question will deal with some sort of link between these. Sometimes the question is explicit (e.g., `Compare and contrast the English and Dutch as colonising powers in Asia') but often it is concealed. The common links are:

- Compare and contrast A and B in some way;

- Causes and effects, usually of A on B;

- How much did A contribute to B (judging importance);

- Argue a case (sometimes with a quotation and you are asked if you agree or disagree)

As you begin to consider the question in detail, you can usefully jot down all the ideas that occur to you on a piece of paper and maybe rough out a sort of skeleton answer. Some people call this brainstorming. In the first place this may be easier to do starting with a circle in the middle of the page and extending lines out as ideas occur to you. If you find a more formal approach like a list works better for you, then use that method. Once you have lots of points jotted down, in the order they occurred to you, then you can move to the next stage which is where you tentatively put numbers by the points. You can reorder these as often as you like as you change your mind, for you are involved in an effort to work out a sensible way to tackle the question. There will be more than one possible way and you are seeking the one that seems best fitted to you. These numbers will become the different paragraphs or sections of the essay when you write it up.

Then you can check your lecture notes, and any other notes you may already have that are relevant to the title set. Next you should go to the textbook (and as many other textbooks as you think helpful) and read the relevant parts, using the index at the back. Do not forget to think of different words under which your interests might have been indexed. Note what you need and put the same numbers on these notes as you used earlier. After this you can read anything that has been set or recommended by a staff member. Again note what you need and add the numbers. Then use the library catalogue and search for anything that might add to your knowledge, reading and noting what you find.

Do not forget to look at your own clippings' file, if you are maintaining one (see Chapter 7 below), for relevant materials. As the clippings will be drawn largely from recent newspapers and magazines, their content will probably be more up-to-date than journal articles and especially books. Such use of clippings can add a touch of originality and freshness to an essay. Because the marker will probably be reading dozens of essays on the same topic, he/she tends to get bored, and such freshness can help your work to stand out and be more interesting. This often means better marks.

If you are in a particular subject run by one main person, it may help if you try looking up their name in the library catalogue. If they are giving a subject and setting an essay on, say, Indonesian history, there is a good chance that the person is an expert and may have published on that topic. When you hand in an assignment in the area of their specialisation, there is a strong possibility they hope or even expect to see their own work cited.

Then you should go over all the notes you have taken, read them and think about them, jotting down all your ideas or criticisms as you read. At this stage you might usefully add to or totally remake the initial skeleton answer. Do not be surprised if the final product looks quite a bit from the first one. You might notice how much you have learned and improved your knowledge and awareness. Remember that if you change the outline, the old numbers will not exactly correspond now, so you should go through and

renumber them. Overwriting the old numbers in red often works well as it stands out as a colour.

At this point, it is useful to discuss the issue with others if possible. This help you to organise your thoughts and identify weak points in your arguments, and might give you some new points to incorporate or help adjust the balance of your answer. You can then redo the skeleton, expand it with sub-points and arguments in brief note form - and wait a day or two if you have the time. This waiting period allows things to `gel' or settle, and gives you time to think carefully about what you intend to say. Finally you write it up, sticking to the skeleton outline. It is usually advisable to set aside the essay when you have written it and leave it for at least twenty-four hours, then look at it again. You will probably notice at least one area that you can improve, and perhaps pick up the occasional grammatical error. It is far better to improve the essay in this way than hand it in thankfully, then find it comes back with more red ink on it than you care to see. Many academics leave written work aside for a while before rereading and then sending it off to a journal, but for some obscure reason few seem to advise students to do the same.

It is not essential to follow strictly the above order of doing things, but it is one handy way of tackling the preparation stage of an essay. You will be tempted to shorten the process and you might find you can do so safely - it is up to you to work out the best methods for you. You should always plan a skeleton answer as part of your approach however.

The stage of organising your notes and preparing the skeleton outline can prove difficult for some. Ironically, the more work you have done, the more ideas you have jotted down, the more notes you have gathered, the harder this stage of skeleton design becomes. There can be so much, that it can tend to overwhelm and what to leave out may become a problem. Graduate students doing research for a higher degree tend to face this issue a lot. The big thing is not to worry - this is the penalty of success, not a failure in any sense. Start by feeling pleased that you have so much information; do not worry about the Organisation but try to treat it as a sort of game. `Can I find three brilliant ways of tackling this question?' might stimulate you. There is never a single correct way of doing it - and if you come up with a different but valid approach, most academics are impressed.

Techniques for organising copious notes virtually all involve effort and a bit of trial and error of different ways of tackling the question. Some advocate writing all the main points on small cards and shuffling these around and comparing outcomes. Others like skeleton outlines each on a separate piece of A4 paper. This may take the form of a list, or have a central point (perhaps the title) with issues radiating off. Either way you can play about with the numbers attached to them until it looks the way you want. Some prefer to make their list on a computer, which does make shuffling the actual points around easy and you can also keep a record of different possible outlines, one to each file with names like `Out1', `Out2' and so on, and then compare them easily.

As a handy hint or rule of thumb, it almost always pays to address a question from a

theoretical point of view, and use your knowledge, experience and examples to justify what you are saying. In most fields of study it is rarely easy to achieve much better than average passes by an approach that provides descriptions and adopts a method of presenting a discussion without some sort of theoretical framework. This is particularly true of longer pieces of work such as semester essays. There may be times when this is not valid, but it holds true more often than not. When in doubt, go for a theoretical approach.

One problem that worries a lot of students is how much to include, where to draw the line, and when to stop. Part of your learning process is to gain such skills, and so any anxiety and struggle involved is not necessarily a bad thing as it can definitely pay off for you. You should bear in mind there is no clear answer to such questions: they depend on the particular approach you decide to adopt when answering the question, as well as on factors like how intelligent, hard working and creative you are. If you are aiming for a bare pass or a high distinction, the answers will again be different. Clearly you could keep reading and thinking for months, but you might only have a week or two to finish it in. Generally, it is entirely up to you where to draw the line when answering a question. It should preferably be sensible rather than idiosyncratic and you should always be prepared to explain why you chose to draw the line where you did. This is a useful exercise in its own right, as if you think long and hard about the extent of the question, it forces you to focus on it more clearly.

STYLE

`Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress,Neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please.'

(Rev. Samuel Wesley, An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry, 1700).

No one can teach you a good writing style by giving you advice in a book. It is quite likely that it is impossible to teach style anyway, it can only be learned or developed. Writing well is of course a skill and, as with all skills, the amount you are born with is dictated by circumstance and beyond your control. You can of course improve on nature as a result of nurture, which is to say you can get better by practice. It is a good idea to practice writing a little each day, if only a paragraph or two, setting out some view. Learning by doing is important.

Reading what is generally acknowledged to be existing pieces of good writing will also help you to develop a better style. Good novels are the most accessible source. If you are in doubt what to read and who writes well, you could check with someone in Humanities. Alternatively you could try anything written by an author who has been selected for the Booker Prize short list. This is an annual competitive event held in Britain for the best novel published by a Commonwealth writer in that year, and several

Australian writers have been short-listed, such as Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and David Malouf. Any author that has appeared on the list can normally be relied upon to write good English, but a few, such as Roddy Doyle, may use a local vernacular in speech. He may improve your ability to swear in Dublin argot but probably not your writing style. Note that many good authors do not appear in the Booker nominations, for example Vikram Seth's, A Suitable Boy, which was missing from the 1993 competition. You should be aware that a surprising number of journalists write badly, so that it is unwise to use a good so-called `respectable' newspaper as a model. Any other way of finding good writers that you can find, e.g., books advising what authors are good, or syllabuses that include set texts should also be useful.

Reading poetry is also a useful way of helping to improve your style. An anthology or collection by different poets is a good idea to ensure a reasonable mix. You should read a poem several times, searching for the meaning, looking for any hidden meanings, seeing if there are any allusions to other works, then examining the use of adjectives to qualify nouns, adverbs to modify verbs and so on. Are there any colourful images or comparisons? You might even ask yourself if you can find a better adjective and try to see why the poet chose the one he/she did. If you were unfortunate enough to be brought up to believe that poetry is romantic and slushy nonsense, you might be in for a surprise: some of it is great fun.

Some simple rules worth following are presented here.

Avoid slang and colloquial English

Written English is more formal than spoken and you can get away with less when writing than when speaking. You should not write slang expressions such as `I fronted up to the office', which are colloquial in Australian or any other version of English. There are also various `buzz words' that keep cropping up, which are fashionable and well-used for a time, after which they often fade away. It is part of being modern, trendy and up-to-date to recognise and use them, especially in speech. Words and phrases such as `fab', `absolutely' (meaning yes), `bombed out', `mega' (as an adjective) and `keen' all came and went; others such as `cool', `heavy' and `fantastic' seemed to linger on for longer. You should never use such words in written essays, and unless you have a good and amusing vocal style, they are also better avoided in oral presentations. In the words of W.S. Gilbert, they may be intended `To give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative' (The Mikado) so they are not without use. However, there is a tendency among staff to regard such phrases with suspicion. It is probably true that current buzz words can be used to save thought and careful explanation, rather than to analyse properly. It is often best to save them for the coffee room and parties. If you use out of date ones, it marks you as a fairly backward person, so you have to work at keeping up-to-date. Note that if English is not your native language it is particularly hard to use slang and buzz words, as much of what you know is probably many years, even decades, out of date and often sounds extremely quaint to the ears of the native speakers.

Avoid trying to be humorous in written assignments

Few people can manage to write in an amusing vein. You should in particular avoid being facetious or indulging in irony. What you say in jocular vein might be accepted by whoever reads it and believed to represent your real views.

When writing, avoid abbreviations

Do not abbreviate words in the form of `I'm', `You'll', `We're', `They'll', `Can't' and so on, even if you commonly use them in every-day speech. You can use acronyms, like EU (Economic Union) which replaced the EEC (European Economic Community) in 1993, OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) or LSE (the London School of Economics). Note that with acronyms you must always explain what they mean the first time you use them, even when they are in common usage, such as the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions). When introducing an acronym, it is usual to cite it in brackets after listing the words in full; e.g., `.... as is seen from the National Employment and Training Scheme (NEAT)'. After that you can simply use NEAT without explanation.

Do not try to impress by using long complicated words or sentences

You should not use long and unusual words for their own sake or indulge in extremely complicated forms of expression. A sentence such as `A plethora of daedal and reiterative platitudinous or indeterminate statements of a verbose nature are counter-productive to the consummation of communication' is an attempt to impress, baffle or at the worst perhaps to conceal thought. Your aim should be to reveal your views and communicate clearly. Remember that `the entire literate inhabitants of the global community in their multifarious linguistic endeavours are strongly advised to consider with the utmost seriousness the potent desirability of eschewing the mega-complex and following a path of simplistic minimalism in both form and expression'. In other words, keep it simple.

If in doubt, you should always use simple short sentences. It is easy to learn to link these together if your writing style is ever criticised as being too curt or `breathless'. For some reason, a style of long-winded exposition seems harder to rectify.

Do not overdo the use of brackets

Generally it is better to use no brackets at all, than sprinkle them liberally. They distract the eye and interrupt the flow of thought. Sometimes they add a little punch to your style, but the reverse is more common. Unless you are a good professional writer and know what you are doing, using them once is fine, but twice tends to lead to a feeling of unease, and thrice is irritating. This does not apply to the first use of an acronym (see above) or the use of brackets when footnoting (see Appendix below).

Do present a bibliography with your essay

You should add a bibliography at the end of any assignment you hand in, unless it has

been specifically said that you do not need one. It always helps to show that you are serious and it is of assistance to the marker who can see what you have found and read and therefore how hard you have worked and how much you can be expected to know and include in the text.

FOOTNOTING

WHAT TO FOOTNOTE

If you supply any numbers, figures, tables or graphs, you should state the source of the information. You should also footnote any special views that are associated with a particular person, and any truly surprising or new view. Naturally all quotations you use must be footnoted. Short quotations are put in either single or double inverted commas, thus `Down with everybody' or `Down with the others'. If your quotation already includes a quote, you use double within single, thus: `As John said, "It always works" and we agree'. Lengthy quotes are indented without quotation marks and leaving a space above and below, thus:

Various factors come together to explain this issue. Nationalism is one, and a potent one, that has been particularly influential since the Nineteenth Century. Technology is another. This has been a steadily increasing source of friction since the middle of the Twentieth Century.

If you double space your typed text, then you can single space the lengthy footnotes, which also makes them stand out nicely.

You do not have to footnote anything that is common knowledge, such as the dates of World War One or that Albert Einstein was a scientist.

Although there is no rule about it, it is common for lengthy personal projects at higher levels to be more footnoted than short essays that everyone has to write. A thesis submitted for a Ph.D. by a graduate student will probably be footnoted the most; an Honours thesis will have a lot; a personal project in the second year will have quite a lot; but a standard first year semester essay might have the least. Whether this is because as people move up, they learn that they should footnote more, or whether fear is the key, as they have more to lose, is not clear.

HOW TO FOOTNOTE

There are two main footnoting systems, but many minor variations may exist within these two. The first is the traditional way, the second is often known as the Harvard System.

A) Traditional Footnoting

With references to books, the author's surname comes first, with either initials or given name following. Some people adopt a different method for footnotes and for bibliography items, with the former putting the given name first, the latter putting the given name (or initials only) last. Then comes the title, either underlined or in italics. Book titles are underlined. Then comes the publisher, the place of publication and the year, followed at the end by page numbers if relevant. An example is:

Smith, J., How to Swim Faster, Coates Publishers, New York, 1991.

A chapter in an edited book is listed by the author of the particular chapter, followed by the book details, thus:

Jones, A., `The back stroke', in Smith, J. (Ed.), How to Swim, Coates Publishers, New York, 1991, pp. 105-21.

Journal article titles are put in inverted commas and the journal name is underlined or in italics, and the journal details are then give, thus:

Jones, A., `Swimming for Health and Fitness', The Journal of Athletics, Vol. XIII, No. 3, 1992, pp. 23-44.

The footnotes are numbered, these days usually consecutively through the essay or article, although some people still start renumbering each new page as footnote number 1. This is particularly tricky if writing by hand, as you have to guess how much space the footnote will occupy and put it in at once, or carry on the writing and remember to put the footnote in when near the bottom, and hope you have stopped early enough. If you have more than one footnote on the page it gets almost impossible. A computer will automatically put them in properly for you, if you have a decent word processing package. In most books, the footnotes are usually gathered at the back these days, and I advise you to do the same, numbering them consecutively throughout your piece of writing.

B) The Harvard System

This is a simpler and more modern system. The text contains a bracketed reference to source with a page reference after a colon if necessary, thus:

... The war actually broke out one month earlier than is usually thought (Jones A., 1987:32).

All the references are then gathered in the back, in alphabetical order so that one looks up `Jones, 1987' to see what the source is and where it appeared. If there is more than one reference to Jones, each will have its own year of publication, and if more than one in a year, they get `Jones A., 1987a)' and `(Jones A., 1987b)' and so on in the text, and appear in order in the list in the back of the book, thus:

Jones A. 1981a, Swimming for Beginners, Coalbrook Press, Sydney.Jones A. 1987b, `The back stroke', in Smith, J. (Ed.), How to Swim, Coates Publishers, New York, pp. 105-21.Jones A. 1987c, Teach Yourself to Swim, Manhattan Press, NY.

In the Harvard system, no numbers are used for references at all. The only time a number appears is when a footnote containing substance appears, i.e., is some comment by someone or by you. There are usually far fewer of these than there are references, and the numbers can be placed either on the page to which they refer, which is the best solution, or gathered at the back, which is cheaper and easier when producing a book, but less easy to use for the reader.

All the rules such as having to underline book titles and the names of journals are identical in both systems.

If you are in doubt as to which footnote system to use, you should check the handouts to see if they instruct you to use a particular system, and if they do not, you could try asking the subject convener. If told it does not matter, then you choose whichever you prefer. Using a method recommended by a Style Manual is safe, as you can always say that you have followed its rules. If the marker does not like some element of it, they can complain to the editor of the style manual rather than put the blame on you. Whatever system you choose to adopt, you must be consistent in your footnotes and bibliography.

When in doubt about how to footnote an item, a fast way is open an academic book or journal article and check how the items are displayed there. You might find how the author tackled the particular problem you face and you can do what he/she did. There are also various style guides that explain how to footnote in some detail, as well as various other useful bits of information. Reading the bibliography in the back of a book, with a critical eye for the way it is done rather than for content, is however a good way to start.

Learning about correct footnoting may seem a little tedious to you and you might wonder why you should bother. The only answer is that things are done that way, there are rules, and if you break them you leave a bad taste in the mouth of the reader/marker. Silly errors in footnoting or incorrect footnoting tend to suggest that the author is slapdash, superficial and has not bothered to learn the basics. This is not going to help you either to convince someone else that your argument is right, or even that you are competent. Such a situation would not help to earn you good marks or to get a good degree.

SOME TYPES OF COMMON MISTAKES IN ESSAY WRITING AND PAPER PRESENTATION

`It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.'

(Joseph Conrad, Outcast of the Islands, 1896, pt.3, chap.2).

You might consider for yourself if you tend to fall into any of the traps below. If your essays are criticised by the marker, consider if he/she is referring to any of these common faults.

`The Shotgun technique'

This is putting down everything you know about the subject, and is a common fault. It is like firing a shotgun and hoping that some of the many pellets hit home. You must avoid doing this. The question you are asked or the topic you are set will be specific, and not of the form `What do you know about X'. Some students feel that by putting down all they know, they impress. Unfortunately it usually works the other way round, and persuades the reader that you are not very bright. You must answer the question that you have been asked.

If you find you have a tendency to put down everything you know, rather than answer the question, it helps to practise making skeleton answers. When you are actually writing an assignment, stick to the skeleton. If you are told that your answer is unfocussed, woffly or vague you might be suffering from this fault. In this case, you need to focus more on the question asked and stick to the main elements of the answer.

One rather mechanical but effective way of doing this, is to refer regularly to the words of the question as you write. Naturally, it should be done so often that it jars or starts to look silly. It may not be impossible to get side tracked if you keep referring to the words of the question and dropping them into the text, but it does require a certain talent. When you think you have finished the essay, it is useful to read it over with the question in large letters in front of you and keep glancing at this. You should see if your answer is relevant in this way. Keep asking yourself the question `What is in that should be reduced in importance or taken out?' - then have the courage to do whatever is necessary.

Getting sidetracked from the very beginning

Never start off any assignment, be it written or oral, by saying `Before I deal with the question set, I will....' or `Before we can tackle this question we must....'. You have been set a topic or question and must answer it. If you sidetrack yourself from the very beginning, you will not impress the marker. You will probably persuade him/her that either you are not very intelligent, or else you wish a different question had been set, because you know more about it, and therefore intend to change the question for yourself.

Skimpy lightweight work

This results in an essay that is too short and lacks sufficient content. If you find it is a

problem of yours, the solution is easy - you need to do more work! If you receive such a criticism, take heed. When you think that you have finished writing the essay, you should read it over and ask yourself `What is out that should be in?' - then put it in. If you cannot answer that, then either you have a perfect answer, or you definitely need to read more.

Badly organised work

If you find this is a problem of yours, you might find that it helps to practise making skeleton answers using old exam papers or questions in a textbook. You need not write out the actual answer. When preparing the skeleton, seek out some logical order (e.g., who was involved, why did it happen, what were the results) and organise your points under your main headings. You could try several different approaches, one skeleton answer for each. You might have to think about what to put in and how to organise better, and you may find it difficult, but the actual process of doing this is part of learning and improving. Be aware that it might take some time before your effort pays off and your work improves. But be reassured that you will be more effective when approaching an issue for the rest of your life.

Too personal answers

This can be a problem for some. If it is, you are advised to avoid the word `I' and be careful not to express your personal views too much, unless the question actually asks what you yourself think. It is safer to keep it in third person whenever possible. The passive tense is often the best, although some now think this is an old-fashioned way. If you start saying `I think' then it can easily become too personal and it may cause you to say what you think without sufficient evidence to back it up. Alternatively, you might be failing to express one or more standard explanations that others have proposed. Using the active tense is often more vigorous in language but can backfire. If you are not sure what is meant by active and passive tenses, `The ball was struck' is passive, `I struck the ball' is active.

Sexism in language

Try to avoid putting `he' automatically and do not assume that someone in an important position is male. One way to tackle the problem of inadvertent sexism when writing is to use the combination `he/she'. Another way that sometimes works well is to put the noun into the plural. For example, `If a student tries, he/she can...' is easily altered to `If students try, they can...' without any indicated sex. There are also certain words that are better avoided altogether as they can give offense. Some obvious ones include:

Not liked Preferred

Workman WorkerManmade Artificial; syntheticChairman Chair; Chairperson

Man and wife Man and woman; husband and wife; partnersMan hours Worktime; person hoursMen and ladies Men and women; ladies and gentlemen.

Careless work, including misspellings and ungrammatical English

If you find carelessness is a problem of yours, it pays to check very carefully when you think you have finished an essay or exam answer. If you are forced to make a lot of changes, so that the text looks bad, you should copy your assignment out again if need be and circumstances allow. If you are using a computer and word processing your work, you will find it a big help, as it is easy to make needed changes on the screen, then reprint a completely new version. If you are in an examination room under conditions that preclude writing out again, you can try to clean up the text as well as you can. The judicious use of white-out can make this easier.

You should also avoid repetition or tautology, such as `big huge', `kills germs dead' or as some would argue, `mindless bureaucracy'. You should also avoid using oxymorons. An oxymoron is something that is inherently contradictory, such as `a free-thinking bigot', or as as was once suggested, `military intelligence'. The person who uttered the sentence `I am here from the Department in Canberra and I am here to help you' might, in the view of some, be described as oxymoronic.

Bad English, grammar, or style

If you went through high school in the last decade or so, it is likely that you were taught little English grammar and possible that you were not taught any at all. Starting around the later 1960s, many of the professional educational advisers in the developed world promoted the view that it does not matter how children spell or use their own language as long as they can communicate their ideas. In retrospect it seems to many to have been a mistake. The proper use of grammar enhances the ability to communicate, while misuse of it can prevent proper communication. The belief that decried emphasis on grammar, spelling and the like became something of a holy cow. For a long time no one could attack it without danger of being labelled an arch conservative. The viewpoint is now becoming somewhat dated, has started to die naturally in a few areas, and been slaughtered in others. Fortunately, many children survived the experiments.

If you are unfortunate enough to be an unlucky victim of such educational social experiments I tender my sympathy, but what can you do about it? In practical terms you have a choice. You can live with the situation; you can study grammar on your own; you can take a course in it (if you can find one); or you can start to learn a foreign language. This last option sounds strange but commonly, we find that people only really start to learn much about the grammar of their own language when faced with the necessity of learning a different one.

If you find poor English is a problem of yours, you might find it helpful to read a good book on how to improve your writing, or talk to an essay adviser, and above all you

should practice writing. Every day you could try to write at least one paragraph and then examine it critically. Try to get a friend to look at it too - you can swop paragraphs if you both need help here. Some people have found a series of three paperbacks useful - G.H. Vallins, Good English, Better English and The Best English, Pan Books, London, 1963, but there are others. You should also see the comments on style above. Be aware that in simple writing and for ease of exposition, it is often a good idea to make one paragraph the container of one idea.

Watch your tenses when using verbs

It is far too common to find assignments with verbs in the present tense mixed up with other verbs in the past tense. Try to keep the same tense within a paragraph, as it is very offputting otherwise, and can persuade the reader that you cannot express yourself. While on the subject of paragraphs, avoid the use of one sentence paragraphs - they are unimpressive. They will almost certainly be either too short for a proper explanation of the point, or else will be long and rambling, somewhat reminiscent of the worst parts of Faulkner's novels.

Too many adjectives and use of extreme language

When you have finished writing, go back and look at the nouns and verbs. If you keep saying `extremely...', `very...', or `remarkably...', as a qualification of the verb, consider knocking at least some of them out. It is better to try to find a better or more appropriate verb, than to modify it with a string of adjectives. You can often find a more suitable verb that is capable of standing alone. An adjective qualifies a noun, and adjectives are often over done. A reasonable general rule is do not use an adjective unless it is apt, unlikely and vitalising. Some advisers suggest you use no adjectives at all, but that is a little extreme, and not to my mind good advice.

If you find yourself using extreme words like `alarming', `staggering', `huge', `vast', or `astronomical', you are almost certainly guilty of exaggeration. Few things are that big or bad. You should cut all extreme words out of the text and try to stop using them. They usually indicate a lack of judgment about the seriousness of something or its degree, which is often associated with insufficient thought being given to the meaning you wish to communicate.

Reaching conclusions without good evidence

When you reach a decision or conclusion, you must have the evidence to justify it. Merely believing that it is the case is not enough. You have to prove it. The fact that a particular book or article said it is so does not prove anything. A different book might say the reverse. You can quote the book as a piece of evidence to strengthen your case but you should be aware that many book and articles are wrong in part or even whole. Jumping to conclusions falls into this category of problem.

Putting labels on people or ideas

It is perfectly acceptable to classify people or views, but you have to be able to defend your decision to place that person/view where you did. What is not desirable, is to hang a label on someone and then attack the label. As an example, I have heard a person called a fascist, then attacked using general anti-fascist arguments. It is a moderately clever but quite unacceptable way of arguing. It removes the need of you having to think why you do not like the view etc., then explaining what is wrong with that view and finally perhaps proposing an alternate view. A quick label and attack may be good enough in politics, and on a debating platform, but not in a university.

`Putting up a straw man' is a similar tactic. This involves making an apparently reasoned but really weak argument for something with which you disagree, then proceeding to batter down the weak case that you had carefully erected. In essence, both sides of the argument are being presented, but only one of them is being presented properly. This tactic is basically unfair. If you are ever accused of being `cavalier' you may be guilty of the straw man approach.

Political or cultural bias

This is very hard to spot in your own work, but easier in the output of others. You should keep an eye open on your work and try to avoid such biases. If you are conservative in viewpoint, then explaining your idea or semester essay findings to someone on the political left wing will rapidly reveal your prejudices (and theirs!). If you are on the left, then you might usefully try explaining to someone on the right. Political opponents need not be vilified and avoided, they do have their uses. You should also be aware of your religious beliefs, if any, and try not to let them get in the way of the workings of your brain and your analysis.

There are certain words that have an obvious bias attached and are found offensive by many. They are always disparaging and rude and should never be used. They may be connected with sex, race, colour of skin, religion, or social group within a society.

Unbalanced answers

Your answer may contain all the correct ingredients and points that could reasonably be made, and your Introduction may fit the Conclusion, but you can still have the problem that your answer is heavily weighted in one direction. The essay may not present a well -balanced fair evaluation of the whole issue. The imbalance may not necessarily be political or cultural, but they are common causes.

Rambling answers

If you find it is a problem of yours, you need to prune, edit and look for what can be left out. Cut out all repetitions. Never say `As was said before...'. If you are doing this, you

are repeating yourself needlessly. You can also usefully practice writing to skeleton outlines. You can do this for yourself and your work will improve, even if no one else marks what you are doing. It might be expected that if someone marks and explains where you have a problem then you would improve. We do not fully understand why people still improve even if no one else sees what they write, but this often happens. It is analogous to us not being sure why people who keep doing intelligence tests, but who do not ever find out the correct answers or know how well they do, still get better at doing them. As a result, their measured IQ tends to increase over time.

Automatically adopting a chronological approach

If you are doing a history subject, or tackling a question in any subject that has an historical dimension there is something of which you should be aware. It is not so much a problem as a piece of useful advice. It is tempting and certainly easier to tackle the question chronologically and `tell the tale', i.e., you explain what happened in the order it occurred. You should be aware that although this is an easy approach, it is more difficult to gain good marks if you follow this route. Too many students drift into saying that `This went up and that went down' without revealing any particular understanding of why it occurred and why the particular results obtained occurred rather than some other ones. You will normally get better marks if you analyse the question, and answer it, rather than merely describing what occurred. Only if the question is of a form like `Trace the course of events in Indonesia in the 1950s.....' does the chronological approach pay off. And in this case you are doing what you were asked to do, which is always a good start.

Being boring

This itself can be a problem but one that is not easy to rectify. It is not only students that suffer from it. Quite a few academics somehow seem not to have managed to overcome it either. A good writing style and ability to interest the reader is very desirable. Few people seem to have this capacity, as most text books and many newspapers attest. It is not possible to teach writing style here, nor am I the right person to do this, but it is worth bearing in mind that you should at least try to make what you write interesting. Academics have to listen to and read many things that need marking. Marking essays and examinations is not the most interesting task in the world. You can perhaps imagine what it is like to read a hundred explanations of the same topic and still say sane. The essay or examination answer that leaps out as interesting and just a bit different (as long as it includes the standard `line' or explanation somewhere) tends to get a better mark. Contrary to underground rumour, academics are only human. Academics are prone to think, delve and seek for alternatives anyway. An academic has indeed been defined as someone who would rather be wrong for an interesting reason than right for a mundane one. This is an extreme view admittedly, but it does perhaps have a kernel of truth. There are limits to what you might argue successfully, especially in the first year, and the main accepted view or views should make an appearance in your answer. The obvious must be said, even if you go on to criticise it. Remember that if something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it probably is a duck.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZZES, WRITE-IN ANSWERS, AND TRUE-FALSE TESTS

Whenever you are faced with a set of answers and asked to choose, you should choose the most appropriate or `best' answer, as more than one may be `correct' in a limited sense. For example, if you are told that:

A] A seagull is a bird; B] A seagull is a bird that eats fish; C] A seagull is a web-footed bird that eats fish;

and you are asked which is correct, clearly all three statements are true - but C] is the best answer as it includes more than the others.

If you cannot answer a multiple choice question, go immediately to the next one. Do not waste time fretting over one that seems particularly difficult. Further down the paper there may be a few questions you can answer immediately and correctly. Your aim with multiple choice is to score good marks, which means you must finish. You should go through the whole paper fast, answering what you can and leaving the others. Then you go back to the beginning and start again, trying to answer the ones you left earlier. You keep cycling through in this way until you either run out of time or finish all the questions. This method gets you better marks than, say, hanging up on question five, so that you only get marked out of the four questions you have answered rather than the total number of questions set.

One point to remember is that if you are asked to answer thirty multiple choice or true/false questions, then you should do so. If you do not know an answer, it is always better to guess as you might guess right, but a failure to answer must be wrong. This is good technique except in the case where more marks are subtracted for a wrong answer than are added for a right one. In many cases you will find that marks are not subtracted if you are wrong. I should point out that I am not suggesting that guessing is a good idea, but it does increase the odds of getting at least some extra marks. With a choice of answers A - E, you have a probability of getting 20 percent of the marks by guesswork alone, if the answers are purely randomised.

If you get `write in' answers, which are often a gap in a sentence, you should read the rest of the sentence carefully and choose something that seems probable. If in an economics test, and you are asked to complete the blanks, you must make it both feasible and about economics. If the question reads `When the level of ...... increases we expect to see a .... in national income or an increase in .........' the words `demand', `rise' and `inflation' seem required. Equally, one could argue that `flood water', `change' and `the degree of water

purity' would fit, but in a subject designed to teach you economics they are not the most probable answers and are unlikely to gain you any marks.

A different form of write-in answer is where you are expected to display creativeness and originality. Two commonly observed types of thinking are known as `convergent' and `divergent'. Convergent thinkers tend to have a tunnel-like vision and go very deeply into an issue; these contrast with divergent thinkers who start with something and jump off sideways, spreading themselves into different areas/disciplines and often linking them productively. `Lateral thinking', a phrase that made Edward de Bono famous, seems to be a specific kind of divergent thinking. Some write-in answers are designed to test powers of creativity or lateral thinking. A task such as `Write down as many uses of a pencil as you can think of' falls into this category. You should really aim to think of original things in addition to the obvious one. Everyone will say `Writing letters' but you could add uses like `constructing a see-saw for tame mice', `making a balance for weighing things', or `giving to a garden gnome to add a professional air to him' and similar creative uses. You should not worry about being silly, and you should be aware that suggesting amusing uses tends to gain you marks.

With true-false tests, under normal circumstances, one answer will be true (or false). With a little ingenuity, it might be possible to posit a particular and peculiar set of circumstances that would make the generally true answer not true at all. Ignore these special circumstances, and opt for the answer that will normally be true. There is no point in ticking one answer then adding a comment in the margin such as `As long as the budget is balanced' or some other statement, as the marker will almost certainly ignore it and might get irritated rather than impressed by your acumen. The time to impress in subtle and clever ways is when you write essays, not when doing multiple choice or true-false questions.

REVISING FOR EXAMINATIONS

`Revision is to learning what digestion is to eating: if it does not happen, you will suffer.'

You will probably get a period for revising your work after lectures and classes finish and before examinations begin. Some people loosely refer to this revision period as `swot vac'. This will probably be either one week or two, but could be slightly longer, depending on which day your examinations are scheduled. This is valuable time and you should try to make the most of it. The very first thing you should do is to make a plan for what you will do and when. Unless some emergency arises, you should try to stick to that plan.

In the plan, you should allow a little rest time, perhaps taking off the entire first weekend

in order to rest and relax. The idea is not to maximise your input of effort, which would mean swotting for all the time that you were not actually sleeping or eating, but to maximise the output of quality study. This will mean some non-study time is essential, although most of the time should be spent working. Try to break the time up into small chunks - for most people it is better to work for four lots of half an hour with a short break in between than to do three hours straight without a break. It is not only easier, you will usually learn and remember more.

It is usually helpful if you ensure that you do not work the night before your exam. Tempting though it may seem - `Oh my word, tomorrow I have to face those questions, I really need to work hard' - the quality of your answers is more likely to be higher if you are well rested, your mind is fresh and not awash with facts that you have tried to stuff in a few hours earlier. Equally do not, in the words of Arlo Guthrie in a folk song called `Alice's Restaurant', got `good and drunk the night before so I looked and felt my best.....'. He was going before a government draft board and he wished to be rejected on medical grounds so that he would not be conscripted to fight in Vietnam. You on the other hand are going into an examination and definitely want to be at your peak.

You should try to do no new work at all in this week or fortnight - the time for new work is past. If you have not read that book that you kept putting off, it is too late to start now. The only exception is if you have done absolutely no work all semester and any work at all will be new. If this is the case, you have ignored all the rest of the advice in this book, and unless you are either very brilliant or very lucky, you should anticipate failing. This short stretch of time is a revision period, and nothing else should get in your way. Summon up your motivation and be determined to do well, learn, and succeed. This is the last training period before the event and just like training race horses, it is worth special effort to get yourself at peak performance when you need it.

You should allocate time by subjects so that you cover every one well in the time available. You are aiming to bring up your weaker ones, push up your better ones, and raise the whole level of achievement. When you cannot make up your mind, it is often better to allocate more time to your weaker subjects: it is easier to raise your mark from 50 per cent to 60 per cent than from 70 per cent to 80 percent. In addition, a fail that could with a little more work have been turned into a pass looks worse than a credit that might have been turned into a distinction.

You also need to break the subjects down into the main topics, to ensure that you do a decent job. You should have obtained old examination papers and `spotted' the commonly occurring topics and covered them well anyway when studying and making notes. These will form the basis of your revision.

When revising, what you are doing is reading your notes until you know them. If they are distinctively laid out, as is suggested, then visual recall will be easier.

In addition to reading, which is a passive occupation, if you get tired or bored, try to do something else on the same topic. Perhaps you could rough out some skeleton answers

for example for an hour. This is an excellent preparation for the examination room. Aftera while, you can go back to the reading, which may by then may not seem quite so bad. Keep the skeleton answers to the questions, so that you can revise them later also.

You should also continue to participate in your study group or work with your study buddy. This is a good format for brainstorming. People can throw a question into the ring, and the group then thinks about it, jotting down ideas for perhaps five minutes. After this, everyone can reveal their thoughts and views, leading to debate and argument. If you spend forty minutes on a question, it may be time for a short break before you move on to another. If you spend ten minutes on a question, go straight to another question. It does not matter how you organise your time, as long as you do it. If it helps to make a game of it, set five minutes for skeleton point answers, with the winner being the one with the most reasonable or relevant points. If the group likes the idea, the overall winner may get bought lunch or a couple of beers by the rest of the group. Anything that motivates the members and lightens the seeming burden has to be good for you. You can consider old examination questions, tutorial or seminar questions from the semester just finished, questions from the textbook, a question that anyone in the group likes, or wants to know the answer to.... There are many sources and the process of considering the questions and writing down an answer in point form is highly beneficial.

The skeleton answers you have invented are often useful raw material to talk over with your best friend or small study group and you can compare your answers. Remember that if you help each other you both gain; it is not the case that if your friend improves because of your work you lose in some vague way. You will gain in turn from the work that they have done. By discussing with your study buddy you might discover something you did not know. If such a hole in your knowledge appears, do not feel sad or miserably depressed. Be happy! You have found the hole and can now plug it - but remember to do it from the material and people you have available and do not waste time searching the library for hours looking for some obscure point at this late stage.

EXAMINATIONS

`In Examinations, those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot tell.'

(Sir Walter A. Raleigh 1861-1922, Laughter from a Cloud, 1923, `Some thoughts on examinations').

A few days before the exam, check to make sure that the time and place you have in your diary are correct. Turning up a week late or in the afternoon for a morning exam will not do you much good. Ensure also that you know exactly where the examination room is, so that if they have put you somewhere different, like a gymnasium, you can go straight to it without any worries.

On the day of the exam, make sure that you set your alarm clock so that you are awake early enough to avoid all hassles and worries the morning of the exam. This is a rotten time to choose to break off with a boyfriend or girlfriend so if there is such a likelihood, you should try to do so a lot earlier or wait until after the exams. Nothing should disturb your mental equilibrium, and emotional conflicts are high on the list of things that can pull the standard of your work down.

If you run an old car, make sure it is likely to start when you need it, or make alternative travel arrangements for that day. You should wake up in good time to make sure you can get there on time. If you travel in by bus, it may pay you to get the one earlier than you need, in order to make sure you definitely get there in good time. If you are running late and upset or worried, you will not do as well as you should, and are in danger of letting yourself down.

You should get there early, say fifteen minutes before the start, and then try to relax. Never try to study in that brief period, or in the hour or so before an exam. The process tends to put a few things into the front of your mind at the expense of a larger number, often more important, which may temporarily be forgotten.

It is also better not to discuss possible questions and answers with other candidates at this stage. If you do, the discussion may take over and blank out a lot of information. The time to discuss questions and answers is in the last few weeks before the exam, never in the last few minutes.

Always take into the examination hall a `kit' of some spare pens and a pencil, a bottle of white-out, an eraser, a ruler and a calculator. You may not need all these, but their very presence is a comfort and knowing that they are there makes you relax. If you are under less stress, then you will probably be able to think and write better.

Note that it is generally better to write in black or blue-black and ball points are quite acceptable. Using a dark colour makes it easier to read and this pleases markers. You should avoid using red ink in particular, as most markers use that themselves and hate to be preempted. This also holds true for diagrams. You should avoid using pencil to write with, unless that is all you have and your pen runs out. It looks sloppy and is not easy to read - from your point of view it makes perfect sense not to annoy your examiner or make his/her life difficult.

If your native language is not English, take a dictionary with you to help you understand the questions and check with the person in charge that it is all right to consult it to help you understand the questions. They will usually be sympathetic.

Wait outside the room until you are told you can enter, then find a decent place and try to relax. Once in the exam room you should select a place in which you will feel comfortable, e.g., near the back, near the front, by the aisle, or whatever. Make sure you have a reliable watch with you, so that you can pace yourself. If you do not have a

watch, try to sit where you can see a clock if there is one in the room. If you cannot manage this and do not have a watch, you can ask one of the invigilators occasionally. Do not upset everyone else by asking every ten minutes however. Do not touch the papers in front of you until you are told you may. Obey any verbal directions, such as you may fill in your name slip now. Normally you will be given ten minutes perusal time in addition to the time set for the exam. You can use this period to read the exam paper but you cannot write anything during this time, not even any ideas that may pop into your head. You should use this period to read the questions and make sure that you fully understand the instructions. In particular, check how long the examination will last, how many questions you will have to answer, and if any of them are compulsory. It is sensible not to pick up your pen/pencil during this perusal time as the invigilators will then not glower at you and check to make sure you are not in fact writing. You will be told when you can start and by what time you will have to finish.

It is a good idea is to read the exam paper several times, at least three, and select the questions that you think that you may be able to tackle. You then whittle these down until you know exactly which ones you will answer. Once you get the go ahead, number these clearly in the margin in the order you want to do them. After that, do not reread any of the other questions. If you do, you may feel depressed if you cannot answer them. This does not matter, because you do not have to answer them in any case.

You must, of course, read the instructions and attempt to answer the correct number of questions. If you are supposed to answer four questions and only attempt three, then you are being marked out of 75 per cent rather than 100 per cent and so cannot do as well as you could. In the same way, check carefully to see if there are several parts to the question, and if so, be sure you answer all the parts, or again you will be marked out of less than the full amount.

Conversely, if you are supposed to do four questions but attempted five questions, the marker will probably only read the first four and allocate a mark. You are unlikely to get the best four marks out of five. You have then wasted your time that could have been better spent. If you have been told that you must attempt question 1 and one question from each of sections B, C, and D, then that is what you must do.

Note that you can do the questions in any order that you like, unless this is specifically precluded in the instructions. Most students tackle first the question that they think they can do best at, and so on down the line to the one that they least fancy doing, but you do not have to do this unless you want.

Always plan out your answers in skeleton form before you start to write. It is always wrong to you grab your pen and start to write furiously as soon as you are allowed to begin. Many students finish early in any case and do not really need the full allotted time to write in. Careful thought about what you want to say and the order you wish to say it is more productive of marks than reams of disorganised writing that spread over several pages. Unless it is explicitly forbidden (which it almost never is) you can plan out your answers in the back of the answer book, or on the back of the actual exam paper. If you

use the answer book, make sure you cross out your skeleton answer to show that it is not to be marked as part of your answer. Believe me, most markers will not read things you have crossed out, as for most staff there are far too many scripts to mark anyway. Those few who might be tempted to read it will perhaps be impressed by the fact that you did a skeleton answer anyway, so you cannot lose.

Plot out the answers in any order that the points occur to you, then reorder the points logically. You can either write out the skeleton again, or save time by numbering the points in the order you will write them - cross out the numbers and change them if necessary, if a better approach crosses your mind. This is not wasted time - it is one of the more valuable uses of your limited time in fact. This method also allows you to see any possible headings and sub-headings: these often impress the marker, who knows that you are under pressure and neat sub-heads can make him/her feel that you are an exceptionally bright person.

Naturally you always answer the question that is asked, rather than one that you wish had been set. Writing down all you know about a subject is not a way to get good marks, and you might not get any at all if you do this. There is a question in front of you - answer it! Keep to the point and answer what is asked. Consider this - if someone asks you `What time is it?' they do not expect to be given a history of the Swiss watch making industry, with a foray into cuckoo clocks, and ending up with the Japanese move into the watch making industry. The questioner merely want to know the time. Exam questions are similar - do not just put in what you know about the general subject, but answer the question as well as you can. In particular, never start off by saying `Before answering this question I will.....'; Markers do not like giving a candidate zero marks, but are forced to do so if the student absolutely refuses to answer the question that was asked.

Do not waste time copying out the examination question in your answer book, but do make sure that you put the question number at the beginning of each answer. You should start a new question on a new page unless instructed otherwise. Sometimes you will have been instructed to start a new answer in a new answer book, but this is uncommon. In all cases, follow the instructions at the top of the question paper.

Try to make your writing legible. It is human nature for the marker to feel generally happier if he/she does not have to spend twice as long as normal, merely trying to decipher the scrawl, while being supremely conscious of a monstrous pile of unmarked papers looming in the periphery of vision. It is not in your interest to alienate the marker, as an unhappy marker is not likely to be a generous marker.

Try to pace yourself so that if you have three hours to write in and six questions to do, you spend in total an average of half an hour on each. That probably means fifteen to twenty minutes planning out all your answers, and twenty to twenty-five minutes writing each, leaving a bit of time at the end for reading over and correcting any obvious mistakes. You must always read over what you have written before leaving the exam room, unless you have been so badly organised as to run out of time. Under exam conditions, with the attendant stress, it is likely that you have missed out odd words in

sentences, used a wrong word here and there, and put things like `there books' rather than `their books'. If you get confused on `there' and `their', you can remember a short piece of doggerel which I was forced to learn at school: `There is, there are, there was, there were; Tee Aich Ee Are Ee'. If you make a mistake in the exam room, you will find the white-out is useful, as corrections can be done neatly and quickly. The above discussion assumes that all questions receive equal weight in the marking: if one question is worth twice the others, you should spend twice as long on that question of course, in order to optimise your chances.

When writing your answer, try to avoid using words like `should', `ought' and phrases like `it is desirable to'. The examiner might disagree and in any case it looks prescriptive rather than analytical. Markers do like to see an analytical approach to any question.

Always use diagrams if you can. In the examination room you can draw all your diagrams quickly and you should not waste time making them look super-pretty. Using a ruler will make them look neat, but much use of different colours is probably a waste of your time. Take care that you choose the correct diagram for the problem and that the parts of it are correctly drawn and labelled. When you have finished writing the answers, make sure you check all diagrams carefully, asking yourself if you are certain it is the right one, and if you have drawn it properly. Make sure you have labelled all the axes and curves, or named any boxes in the diagram, and done so correctly. It is common for students to pick up several mistakes when checking at this stage, so you should make sure you do finish writing early enough to correct both text and diagrams.

If you run out of time and realise that you will be unable to finish the necessary number of questions, you can often gain marks by doing the last answer in note form. You should get some mark at least for doing this. All other questions must be answered in proper `written out' English and not in note form, unless a particular question states that it can be answered in that way.

It helps to define any terms in the introductory paragraph. You might find it helps to finish a question by saying something like `In conclusion, it can be said...' or `To sum up, the main influences were....'. This refreshes the mind of the marker, who after all may have read a hundred other versions of the answer before yours, and may tend to forget just how well you have made your points. Some advisors suggest avoiding using the word `conclusion', but I think it helps to do so when answering an examination question. You can vary this by using different phrases, such as ` In conclusion', `Therefore we can conclude', `To sum up', or `We can therefore decide', in different answers.

Do not try to cheat. It simply is not worth it. Even if you manage to sneak in a few dates, key phrases and the like, you may not find you can use them. More to the point, markers look to the general quality of an essay and the quality of the analysis revealed in your answer. At best you are only likely to be able to smuggle in a few facts which do nothing to raise the quality of what you have to say.

An important reason for not trying to cheat is that if you are found out, the potential loss

is great; but if you are successful the potential gain is small. Such situations have been described as `possessing a large down-side risk', a piece of awful jargon, but quite descriptive. If you can gain little or nothing but stand to lose a lot, accepting the risk is stupid. This is particularly so with continual assessment as in Griffith University, where the mark for the entire exam is likely to be a fairly small percentage of your final mark for the subject. Cheating simply is not worth the risk.

If you blank out and cannot remember anything - do not panic. It is only nerves and can be beaten. If you have learned any relaxation techniques, or breathing techniques, use them. That should fix it. Do not however merely take lots of deep breaths. In moderation, say three breaths, it can help, but too many and there is a real danger that you will hyperventilate and get into quite serious physical trouble. The remedy for that is to breathe in and out in a paper bag, but you are not likely to be carrying one around with you. Never use a polythene bag, of course, as it is surprisingly easy to suffocate with one.

If you have not learned a breathing technique which helps you to relax, try the following. Sit quietly, with your legs uncrossed and palms resting in your lap. Close your eyes, consciously try to relax, and then picture some quiet and pretty scene from your childhood, perhaps drifting in a boat on a lake. Something rural seems to work best. With any luck, this will solve your panic attack.

If that quick fix fails, then you can try this quick relaxation technique. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, rest your forearms on your thighs with your palms up and fingers loosely folded. Empty your mind for a few seconds. Then think of a number like 10 or 30 and visualise it in your mind. If you need a simple relaxation, 10 might work; if your mind is totally blank, choose 30. You then breathe slowly and normally, counting your breaths in and out, starting with 10 (30) and coming down to 9 (29), then 8 (28) and so on. Concentrate on feeling the sensation of your breath coming in and out and also visualise the number changing downward as you count. With higher numbers, you may find it easier to think `twenty' on the in-breath and `nine' on the out-breath. When you get down to zero, just sit quietly for a few more breaths. Then to come out of the relaxed state you are in, count five slowly in ascending order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and open your eyes. As most relaxation techniques work better after a little practice, it would make sense to try the technique out a few times before the exams even start. If at any time in the exam you should start to get overanxious again, you can repeat the technique and count down again; it cannot harm you and should lead you to relax once more.

You will have used up only about a minute or two of the total time, which is nothing, and you should now be in better shape to answer the questions. You only have to do a few questions after all. That should be easy. Remember that.

After you leave the examination room it is tempting to stand around outside and ask others what they wrote in answer to question five, and the like. Such post mortems serveno purpose and can be positively dangerous if they make you feel angry or depressed, should others seem to have supplied a better answer than you. They might in fact be

wrong but that is not really the point. Your task now is to wipe out from your mind the examination that you just sat and, after a break, to relax, start preparing yourself for the next examination paper. It is always the next paper that should concern you and attract your wholehearted attention, never the one you have already done. For examination papers, bygones are bygones. Remember that before examinations, (but not in the few minutes immediately before them), discussions of possible questions and answers to them can be very helpful to you. Post mortems however cannot.

ORAL ASSIGNMENTS

`I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking. But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make certain they are still going.'

(Lord Birkett, in The Observer, 30 Oct. 1960).

Oral presentations can be a trial for some. If you are shy, introverted, and lacking in self confidence, or in other words are generally normal, then an oral presentation might worry you. There is not a lot you can do except practice. You might try joining a drama group and taking a small part in order to build up your confidence. Drama parties tend to be very good too. Alternatively consider joining a toast-masters or toast-mistresses organisation, where you learn about and gain practice in public speaking. The more you take the opportunity to practice, the better you will become. Rest assured that it gets easier. If you do develop twitches or show other signs of nerves before presenting a seminar paper, take consolation. Quite often, the shy students do better at examinations to make up for the agony of public speaking.

If on the other hand you are extroverted, self confident and enjoy performing in public, then go for it! You will not know the delicious frisson of stage-fright, but that is your loss and you must live with it. At least you will not feel sick either. Your main problem, if you have one, might be that you tend to be a little too self confident and as a result may come over as rather brash and glib. If anyone tells you something like this, then try to rein yourself in and not go over the top. Exercise more self restraint. You might also do well selling real estate in the future, if the job market for graduates gets worse.

You must never be put off or allow fear of the assigned topic to crush you. Just start onit! Read the title carefully, jot down a few preliminary ideas, including anything at all that might under the remotest circumstances prove relevant. This might include simple things, such as why you dislike the topic, why it seems difficult to you, and what sort of book, journal, magazine or newspaper might have something on it. Of course, you must put down all the substantive ideas about the question also. Once you have begun, it usually seems easier and more interesting. It is common to find that certain lines of enquiry start to suggest themselves. Talk to members of your study group if it helps you to sort out your ideas. Ask your friends if they heard anything on the radio or saw

something on TV about the topic recently, and what they remember or felt about it. Anything at all that gets you started and raises the level of your interest is valuable.

Whether you read it aloud or present from notes is up to you, unless the rules of the subject specify otherwise. Reading aloud is easier for the presenter, but usually a bit more boring for the audience. You should try to do it from notes at some stage at university, just for the experience. The first time you give a seminar, reading aloud is definitely safer for almost all students. If you are mature, confident, extrovert and exuberant, then you might use notes from the very beginning.

If you intend to read aloud, once you think you have finished your first draft, a practice dry run or two is called for, to see how long it takes. Do not forget that you read aloud to a group more slowly than you would normally speak. If the rules say `about twenty minutes' then sixteen to twenty-five minutes would be acceptable, but not forty minutes. Do not go on too long, it bores the boots off everyone, and you start to lose marks, not gain them. It is usually better to cut out a chunk if you find you are already running late and the end is not in sight. Equally if the staff member interrupts and asks you if you could finish quickly, you should do so. You could apologise for having done too much to fit in, tell people in a few seconds what the last two points are that you did not have the time to discuss, and say that you would be happy to answer questions on them in question time. Then jump to a short summary. Preferably this should not be more than two minutes in length. In a fifty minute session, commonly a paper should last not more than thirty minutes, leaving twenty for questions, comments, and perhaps a summing-up from the staff member. Twenty minutes is often a better length, as it allows more time for the group to start working properly. Remember, a seminar is a group session, although it may seem like a monologue to you as you prepare the paper. What you are preparing is really a paper for discussion.

Whatever type of person you are, extrovert or introvert, you should try to make the presentation interesting as well as of high quality. This means using your voice properly. Most untrained people speak far too quickly when public speaking - make a definite effort to slow down and try to listen to the sound of your own voice. If anyone in the group asks you to go more slowly, then rapid speaking is definitely a problem of yours that you will need to address. People easily tend to lose concentration, stop listening or even in extreme cases fall asleep. You should be aware that some in your audience will be tired from earlier work that day, or from the excesses of the night before, and others not really interested in the topic.

If you are giving the paper in the evening, be prepared to face more audience tiredness and to deal with this. You are likely to find more people turning up late, as they were kept at the office, the traffic was bad, there was nowhere near to park and so forth. Try not to get thrown by latecomers. I find it better to ignore them completely. If they apologise to you, just smile and nod. Whatever you do, you should not start a conversation with them. Go straight on with your talk;, do not wait for them to find a seat and get comfortable. The people who came on time should never be punished for so; that is what happens if you devote attention to the newcomers. Do not try to summarise

for them what you have already said. You might be prepared at question time for them to ask something that you dealt with before they came in. You can point this out in a nice way, and then tell them the answer, but briefly. Keep it short and do not give an extended answer, as this would bore everyone else who was present from the beginning.

In order to deal with the problem of tiredness among the audience and some lack of interest, you can try to alter your voice, getting louder and softer, emphasising the main points with more volume and then dropping it away. A small pause before a major point usually gets peoples' attention. Do not indulge in the politicians' habit of repeating phrases for emphasis, which is designed to persuade not to inform, not to inform. This tactic has no place in a university but you might remember and use it if you decide to go into politics. You should also speak loudly enough so that you can be heard by everyone present. If the people at the back cannot hear you, then both you and they are wasting time. Project your voice if you can, which does not mean you should shout. Do not mumble and do try to speak clearly.

Always try to get eye contact and look at different people as you talk. Do this as much as possible. If this means reading head down, then glancing up in pauses, do this and make sure you look at someone different each time, to draw them into the group and make them interested in what you are saying. You might find that you feel shy and nervous about this at first, but do not worry. Do it anyway, and eventually you will probably overcome the feeling.

In almost all cases, it is better to read the paper aloud without allowing interruptions from the audience. The proper time for comments and questions is at the end. A few students start by actually inviting interruptions and questions as they go; this does however tend to spoil the main focus and flow of the paper for the majority of the listeners. It also allows any extroverts who may be present and who cannot keep their mouths shut to disrupt and dominate the proceedings. Many questions that will be asked as an interruption will be answered in the paper later, you simply have not reached it yet. If you do suggest you welcome interruptions, it is on your own head.

Should you get an unwanted question in the middle of your presentation, it is usually better to say politely that you would prefer to deal with that at the end rather than try to answer it there and then. If you then jot down a few words to remind you about the question, you can ensure that you start with that person during question time and they will often feel good about it at that point. Once you allow an interruption, others tend to join in and there is a danger that the paper may turn into a free-for-all discussion before you have even finished. If this occurs, a good chairperson should interrupt and suggest that we finish the paper without further interruption then return to the debate or argument at the end. It is better not to risk it happening in my view. You can use your discretion of course, and if the interruption is simple, along the lines perhaps of `Did you just say 1982 or 1992?' you can of course give the correct date immediately.

USING OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCIES

It is desirable to use overhead transparencies (OHTs) to illustrate or explain your points. They give people something to look at and help you to transmit your meaning. The actual OHT plastic oblongs can be bought in a packet, and you will need a special set of pens for drawing on it. Ordinary pens do not work well and cannot easily be cleaned off. If you use a water-based pen, you can subsequently clean off with a wet cloth. The oil-based pens are intended to be permanent and the OHT cannot easily be cleaned without special substances, so you have to buy more plastic oblongs. Do check carefully when you buy the pens. If you cannot afford a box of OHT plastic oblongs and pens, you could split the cost with other students and buy jointly as a cooperative. As you are likely to use OHTs during your entire three years, it could be worth the initial investment for yourself. You might need more plastic oblongs than you think, especially if you choose to keep them with your talk notes for future revision, rather than to wipe them clean and reuse them.

It is best to prepare your OHTs in advance of your talk. You have plenty of time to think about how you will use OHTs to enhance your message, decide exactly what you wish to put on them, and then do them neatly. If you get it wrong, or it looks awful, it is easy to wipe out and redo. It is also much less nerve-racking if you prepare in advance. Trying to draw diagrams while you speak can add substantially to your feeling of nervousness. If you are writing down points as you talk and forget to do one, it can be a bit devastating if you suddenly realise what you have done - or not done.

What should you put on the OHT? Data and statistics can always usefully be discussed in this way. It tends to put people to sleep if you drone on using figures in the text that they cannot see. In addition, if they cannot see the data, the listeners do not seem to get the message. In any case, if you read out statistics, they almost always seem to go past the audience too quickly to be absorbed and understood. If you wish to present any statistics, including any research results, always put them on an OHT, perhaps in a statistical table. You can then talk to the transparency and point to the figure that you are discussing. You can also use data on OHTs to emphasise the main points you wish to make.

Systems can also be usefully shown on OHTs. A complex set of inter-relationships can most easily be grasped by an explanation accompanied by a visual presentation, rather than merely giving a description. Unless either you or your audience is brilliant, describing without a visual aid is likely to confuse people, rather than to transmit your message. If you ever have to show the progress of things round a system, it is virtually essential to have a diagram to show people and explain as you trace the track round.

Diagrams are another area that lend themselves well to OHTs. When you put one up, it helps the audience if you immediately tell them what the diagram is for, i.e., what use it plays in your talk. The next thing is to tell them what is on the axes, or what the main boxes etc. of the diagram are. Whatever you do, never jump in and say something like `You can see that...'. Many, perhaps most, of the people present will not be able to see it at all. Remember that you have thought long and hard about the topic, and seen the diagram often, perhaps even drawn it many times to get it right. You are familiar with it,

but you must remember that it will be new to at least some of those present. Only when you are sure they know what the diagram is about, can you use it. Naturally, this advice applies to a diagram with which you cannot expect the viewers to be familiar. If it something they should know, e.g., an economic supply and demand diagram in a second year presentation, you can say something like "This is the usual supply and demand diagram" and proceed to use it at once.

An outline of your talk, covering just the main headings also makes a good OHT and has the additional benefit of making you organise your presentation well. The other students and the staff member present know you have spent time organising your talk and they will follow the presentation better. It is often useful to take a sheet of paper and cover up the bottom part of the OHT when you do not wish the audience to see the whole thing immediately. It works well if you start by just showing the title and first point you want to make and then sliding the piece of paper down to reveal the second point, then later the third point, and so on. When the last point has been revealed, leave the whole OHT up. You might have to take off the OHT which depicts the overall outline a few times, to show other OHTs. For example, you may wish to show some detail of the point you are discussing, or you might have data or a diagram to show the audience. If so, it is often useful to put the overall OHT back up again, once you have finished with the new OHT.

If you can afford it, or if the rules of your subject say you must, then as an alternative to an OHT, you might make a xerox copy of the outline for each person who will be present. You should pass the outline round before you begin your talk. Even then, it often helps to have the same information on an OHT - it gives them something to look at, and keeps them looking in your direction rather than being immersed and head down, which some presenters find difficult to cope with. Eye contact definitely helps your presentation.

You should leave your transparencies up for a lot longer than you think is necessary. Remember that you are familiar with their content, but the audience is not. They have to look at the OHT, see what you mean by it, then think about the information and your interpretation of it, and this all takes time. They may also wish to refresh themselves on an earlier point you made, or catch up if they were busy thinking, or got distracted, and missed one of your points. It is better to let them look it up on the OHT than interrupt you and say `What was the third point again?'. In any case, people simply like having something to look at as well as listen to. It is better to have things up for your entire talk, than whip OHTs away before people have fully studied and grasped the meaning of them.

Keep your transparencies simple - if you put too much on one, people get confused easily. You can perhaps divide a complex thing over, say, four OHTs, and go through in order. If necessary, you can go through them again, showing them twice, if it is a particularly complicated issue.

At some stage you will probably need to xerox tables of data and turn them into OHTs to use in a presentation. There are two important things you need to know about xeroxing tables from books and articles. First, it is comparatively rare that you need the entire table

from the book as you will be using the data to make some point or other. Never supply more figures than you need - it is often better to copy out the part of the table you need to discuss by hand, using large figures and use that, rather than present a whole table when you will only refer to two or three of the figures contained in it.

Second, if you must xerox a whole table, you will probably find that the figures will be tiny, and too small for the people at the back to see. You will almost certainly need to blow it up in size, using the xerox machine for this purpose. Most modern machines allow you to copy something and enlarge it up to 140 per cent of the original to make it easier to see. If this product is still too small, you can then xerox the enlarged xerox itself, to make a new version that is even larger. The process can continue until the data is big enough for your purposes, if you do not lose too much definition. Note that as you blow up the data, you can get less and less on the OHT. It often takes a few attempts to get just the part you need on the final product.

Using the proper pen, you can draw straight on to a transparency and use different colours if you find this useful to explain your points. In most cases, the colour black (yes I know it is not really a colour, but would `the non-colour black' really be more understandable?) along with two other colours are often as many as will be useful. The use of too many colours merely confuses and starts to look as if Walt Disney may have designed it.

If you wish to draw on the transparency in front of the group, e.g., if you have a blank map and wish to put in towns and rivers, note that you can slide the original under another blank transparency and draw on the blank top one. This keeps the original untouched, so you can use it again, either in that session or elsewhere, if you want. If you have a complex diagram you wish to show, it often helps to make it in advance, building it up on separate OHTS. You place one layer directly above another to show what you are doing. It is possible to hinge the several OHTs together at one side, and fold them down, one after the other, as you progress through your discussion of the complicated diagram, adding each layer exactly above the one earlier. A different colour for each layer may help you make your points more clearly. If you have a sequence of events to discuss which can be gathered into groups, it may help to put each group into one colour and on its own layer, for example.

If you try to make complex diagrams in colour or layers, you might try it straight on the plastic, but if you do, you should make sure you are using water-soluble pens and just keep trying, wiping out with a damp cloth until you get it the way you want. Alternatively, you might prefer to work it out on scrap paper first and see how it will go. This will save you a lot of wiping clean and starting again. Do whichever works best for you.

You will find that it helps to number the OHTs in one corner in the order that you will use them, either using the normal OHT pen, or by sticking a small piece of paper there and writing on that. If you ever drop your OHT transparencies without having numbers on them, you will probably get very confused, especially if you are in front of an

audience when it happens. They tend to look very similar and you are more likely to panic than recall the exact order in which you wish to show them. Another reason for numbering them, and doing so in pen so that the audience can see the number, is that those listening and watching may find the numbers useful if they wish to ask to see a particular OHT again later, probably when you answer questions. If you have to sort through asking `This one? That one?' it bores everyone and might even lead to unwanted hilarity.

You should check the room will have an OHT machine beforehand - ask the tutor or person in charge at least a day or two ahead of time and preferably at the end of the tutorial the week before. If you turn up with a mass of OHTs on which you spent hours of work and there is no machine to show them on, you will get a deep sinking feeling at the very least. It could lead you to worry or panic and do a much poorer presentation than you would otherwise manage. Passing around OHTs for the audience to look at individually never works well. You will find that many of them will not have received the particular OHT you are discussing before you have moved on to something else. If you ever get to the stage of having three or four OHTs going around the table, you will realise that different members of the audience are at different stages of your talk. You then have a choice of stopping talking until everyone has caught up, which irritates those who saw the OHTs first, or continuing to talk. If you choose to do this, then those at the end of the distribution line are strongly disadvantaged. I am aware of no good solution to this problem and if you suffer it, you will appreciate the sense of a prior check on machine availability.

When you cannot use OHTs for some reason - perhaps you cannot afford to buy them, there is no machine available, or you are allergic to plastic for example, then you are back to using the blackboard or in a more modern room, a white-board. There is nothing wrong with this method, but it lacks the punch of a well-designed OHT, and you will have to draw in front of everyone, which both wastes time and exposes your weaknesses as an artist. You should try to get in the room early if you can, and draw the first few diagrams, or put up the early data on the board, before the others arrive. With the pressure on room space caused by a great increase in student numbers without a concomitant increase in government expenditure, you will be lucky to find an empty room in the period before yours. When you come to draw on the board in front of others, you should remember that if you wish to talk to the group as you are drawing, you will be facing the board with your back to the audience. This means that they will not be able to hear your voice properly if you speak in your ordinary tone and at normal levels. You must turn your head sideways as much as possible, in order to cast your voice closer to the required direction, and at the same time you should project your voice, so that they can hear you clearly.

USING BLACKBOARDS AND WHITE-BOARDS

When intending to use the white-board, you should ensure in advance that the room has a white-board eraser or a piece of old cloth to serve the same purpose - if it has not, take your own bit of cloth.

You also need to take with you as many coloured white-board markers (pens) as you will need, and you should remember to check to see that they have not dried out. They seem to do this quite quickly. If you cannot borrow some from a member of staff, you will have to buy your own. It is a rare event to find a white-board pen lying around when you need one. Note that white-board pens are totally different from OHT ones. The latter have much finer points and, even worse, they will often not rub off a white board. This means that if you try to use OHT pens to write on a white-board, the resulting lines will be too thin to show up properly and you will in any case rapidly run out of board space. If you use a white-board pen on an OHT, it will produce a thick line which is usually inappropriate.

With a blackboard, there is usually less problem finding pieces of chalk. If your room happens to have none, then a quick search in adjacent teaching rooms usually reveals some. If you require a specific coloured chalk, or definitely need a number of different colours, then you might have to bring your own chalks. A staff member might be persuaded to lend you some. You will have to put up with covering your clothing with chalk dust, as generations of old-time teachers discovered. Whatever else you do with the blackboard, try not to let the chalk squeak. It sets some peoples' teeth on edge.

You will find that you have to write larger than usual on both white and blackboards, in order that those further back can read what you put. Writing in block capitals is often better for people unused to writing on boards. Many people have difficulty keeping their lines straight as they go across the board. You are unlikely to be writing out sentences, unlike school teachers, so this is not normally too serious a problem at the university level. You should try to keep the things you write arranged in some sort of logical sequence. You may find your topic lends itself to going down the board, or else across; for some purposes, it is better to start in the middle and radiate lines out. If you end up with a full board and are starting to squeeze bits in wherever possible in a randomised way, you should grab the duster, clean off either the whole board, or more likely the part with the earliest information on it, and start again.

Remember that when using white-boards and blackboards, unlike with OHTs, your back will be to the audience when you draw something. If you try to talk and draw at the same time, which is often needed to avoid long pauses, remember to turn your head round as far as you can and to speak in a louder voice, projecting for all you are worth. Otherwise the sound disappears into the boardand not everyone will hear you.

If you have to make a presentation that has been set up as a business-type one and involves role playing, e.g., you have to pretend you are selling an idea to a board of directors, you might choose to immerse yourself in the role. You can dress up for the part, with a neat blouse and business suit (or as close as you possess), or jacket, collar and tie, (depending on your sex and tastes). This looks good, shows you are taking it seriously, and can make the assessor impressed and sympathetic, which may help to gain you marks. In addition, your own performance is likely to be better, partly because you

are really trying your hardest and your brain pulls out the stops a bit, and partly because you will probably have done more and be better prepared if you are going to the trouble of dressing up. Incidentally, if you receive jocular and friendly teasing and remarks from your friends in the group, it is usually better to smile and ignore it, treating them loftily, rather than to get into a slanging match. Only if you are good at public repartee should you try to defend yourself, as unless you have the ability of a Groucho Marx or Winston Churchill to put someone down with humour, it can backfire. What most people tend to say in defence and off the cuff is often merely rude and can be a bit embarrassing. You really do not have to defend yourself to your friends for trying hard to do well.

PLAGIARISM

Copybook work may be desirable; copying book work is something else again.

Plagiarism means copying out someone else's work and presenting it as your own. This may be done directly from some book or article, or from another student's essay from this or an earlier year. Plagiarism is a deadly sin at university and is punished stringently. You should avoid it at all costs, not only because if discovered you will feel embarrassed, but also you will be punished and you might find a close eye being kept on you henceforth. In addition you are harming your own progress by not learning skills for yourself. Searching libraries for information and going through books and journals, either by hand or electronically, teaches and reinforces skills you will need for the rest of your life, including many jobs that you are likely to consider for your career. The use to which you put the information you have gathered also has a strong learning component. This includes thinking about what you have found, deciding on the main theme and various messages, organising it to ensure the best presentation possible, and finally writing it up in your own words. Such processes also help you to learn and remember the information itself. You cannot improve yourself by plagiarising other people's work. Even if you manage to get away with it on occasion and deceive a marker, the real person you are deceiving is yourself. Do you really want to do this?

There is one occasion when you should be particularly careful not to be accused of plagiarism. If you have a major project or semester essay to write, you might discuss the subject in depth with other students, arguing the pros and cons and learning as you do this. There is nothing wrong with this and on the contrary it is a good way of learning and reinforcing what you have read. There is a slight danger that if you get too close to someone else, and mutually discuss the issue in minute detail over several weeks until you agree on everything, it is possible that you will both produce a final paper that is extremely similar. This can occur even if the writing up was done totally separately. If this should eventuate, you might be accused of plagiarism if the marker decides that the papers are really identical and essentially the same one in approach, layout, methodology and so on. You may then have to defend yourself before a hearing. If you share a house with the other person, or are enjoying a relationship, this might make the case against you

look stronger. To avoid the danger, or substantially reduce it, you might choose to stop the discussions before complete agreement is reached. By doing this, the papers should be sufficiently different.

At the undergraduate level, it cannot be expected that all your ideas and views will be original; naturally most of what you think, say and write will have appeared somewhere in print before. It might be that at the undergraduate level we can add a little something to an accepted view. After all, if a dwarf stands on the shoulders of a giant, the dwarf can see a little bit further. For the undergraduate, plagiarism often means a straightforward copying out, word for word. An assessor can usually spot passages that were lifted holus bolus from elsewhere because the writing style often sharply and briefly improves. As long as your assignment is well organised, written, pertinent and the like (see chapter 6) the fact that the ideas are already known is not a problem. You should, however, note in passing that the common student idea that there is a correct answer or only one thing that the assessor is looking for is hardly likely to be a valid perception. Naturally, if your assignment includes mathematical calculations then there will be a correct result for that part, but what you do with the result and how you interpret it can often still vary a great deal.

At the post-graduate level, however, plagiarism can get a bit more difficult because greater originality of ideas is required. At this higher level, as was said by Marguerite Gardner, `Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower'. If one of your assignments is returned with a comment like `Nothing new', this is quite a severe criticism at this higher level.

JOINT PROJECTS

`We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.'

(Benjamin Franklin, 4 July, 1776.)

You might find that in some subjects you are required to undertake a project as part of a team with other students. This not only means that you can handle bigger questions, but during the process you learn several different and useful skills, such as working with another, delegating, or editing. Skills such as these are ultimately marketable and will undoubtedly be useful for your career once you leave the university.

When starting on a group project, it is usually best for everyone to meet together early and choose a leader. This person might not only have to organise and coordinate but might also have to report the findings publicly and verbally, depending on the requirements set in that subject. An older, maturer student with some experience is often better here, although this is not an essential choice. A good seventeen year old is

naturally a better choice than a hopeless forty year old.

Once a leader has been chosen, the group then should set a timetable for the stages that will be involved in getting to the final report. This process can take several forms but the following is not unreasonable.

Stage 1 is to do some preliminary reading quickly and make an outline of the main points that will be tackled in the project and/or the main ways that it can be divided up. This may be done at the first meeting if it is agreed that it would be feasible and people know enough about the topic. This is the stage of brainstorming.

Stage 2 is to meet and allocate the group members to the different parts, so that two or more students will work together as a sub-group on each part, doing intensive reading and preparing that bit of the project. Friends work together better than enemies, but strangers can often work together satisfactorily. This small sub-group may not need a leader, but an extrovert, experienced or more aggressive type may take over and function as one, if needed. The sub-group usually prepares a written report to the main group. The sub-groups may need to liaise a bit, to ensure that the approaches roughly match up. It can create problems down the line if of five sub-groups, two argue against the proposition, and three argue for it. This is the stage of research, but with some coordination needed.

Stage 3 is for someone, usually the leader or a small inner cabinet of two or three, to put together or write a daft report from the bits submitted by each subgroup. They will usually have to edit, cut, rewrite and generally bring them into line. They will also probably have to draft an Introduction and a Conclusion as part of the process, because these cannot usually be written until after the body of the report with all its findings and overall conclusions are known.

Stage 4 usually requires a meeting of the whole group to listen to the draft report and agree to it, because the editors may have had to have made decisions and perhaps compromises during the writing of the draft final report. It will not look good if a sub-group objects to the final report at the final presentation stage. This can be quick and easy, if all agree generally and only a few minor suggestions for improvement are proffered and accepted.

Stage 5 is the final writing up and/or oral presentation, as required by the rules. If an oral presentation is required, a common way is for the overall leader to do this. You might consider, however, letting a member of each sub-group present their part of the final report. This allows them some satisfaction, and they are identified with their part of the project. On a practical level, they are going to know more about that section and people know to whom they should address in any questions.

If your particular leader, or group prefers a different way of tackling the project, then you can of course ignore these suggested stages. They may not suit everyone or each particular circumstance.

SOME CAUTIONS ON JOINT PROJECTS

`To trust oneself may be to trust a fool; if you place your trust in others, the act removes any doubt.'

Undertaking any project where you are responsible for searching out information and writing an extended essay or putting together a report will almost always take longer than you think. Joint projects are even more difficult and tend to go more slowly as there are certain additional problems involved. These may include problems of authority and control over the entire project, coordination within and between sub-groups, editing (which often includes issues of compromise and perhaps politics) and perhaps making a precis of the final report if a short oral summary has to be presented. There will almost certainly be the issue that some sub-groups are better or more hard working than others, so that there may be imbalance between their reports to the centre. It is essential that with a joint project the group aims to finish earlier than is actually required, in order to build in a safety margin for time.

If you discover a problem that the person selected to act as the leader of the whole group or even of a sub-group turns out to be hopeless, you might have to change them. This process is always embarrassing and usually results in the generation of ill-will, so do not undertake this step lightly. The people replaced are unlikely to give of their best.

You should also beware of `free riders' in joint projects. One or two often appear: they do little or no work, leave everything to others, but usually share equally in the final mark. This is naturally resented by those who have contributed a fair share. In the short term, free riders often feel successful and may pride themselves at being clever in gaining marks for doing little or nothing. In the end they do themselves a disservice, as they learn far less than they should and in addition do not develop their skills properly.

On the other hand, in a sub-group of, say, half a dozen, you will often find that one or two have done more than their fair share, and they recognise this fact. It often leads them to feel that their extra work and effort should be recognised by the award of a better mark than average and particularly higher than any widely recognised free rider.

You might consider some system of allocating marks to members based on contribution, rather than equal sharing of marks, because this helps to reduce the free-rider problem and pleases the harder working minority. You should be aware that the actual process of trying to achieve an equitable distribution of marks can become complicated. It is probably better to try not to waste a lot of time on the mechanics of how to do this. You have been set a question or a problem to investigate and solve. It is really important to get the subgroups sorted out quickly and then get the members into the library, searching, gathering, organising, and reporting. Perhaps a stern word by the overall leader might

work. Alternatively you might organise an early general meeting about the issue to apply peer group pressure in order to try to shame the guilty few into doing more. The free rider problem has been around a long time and it may not be easy to solve in your particular case. Maybe you should just live with it, knowing the longer term will punish the offenders, who will both know less and perform less effectively.

7 SOME TOOLS OF THE TRADE

SPEED READING

When you consider the relative benefits and cost, it seems strange that so many more people choose to drive at speed rather than read at speed.

Few people naturally read as efficiently as they might, even those who read quickly. Although you were taught to read as a child, it is unlikely that you now read well. Once a child can read, few teachers feel that there is any more to do, other than perhaps a few spelling tests and the like, so you were probably left alone. Unless you have already undertaken a speed reading course, you might as well assume that although you know how to read, you do so at less than your maximum ability. The reading situation is not unlike learning to drive a motor car: the majority of people in a developed country learn to drive, but the majority of those in turn do not drive particularly well, and a surprising number drive badly.

Undertaking a speed reading course is so valuable that one wonders why it is not made obligatory in high schools. `Speed reading' is really a misnomer, as such courses teach you how to read properly, and better than almost anyone does naturally. This is a different thing from merely reading quickly as you can imagine. If you work through a speed reading course, you will not only read faster but will also probably retain more of what you do read. To some extent it is a trade off between speed and memory: you can choose both to read more quickly and understand/remember more, or you can really read a lot more quickly but remember about the same amount. If the university offers free courses, or you find a computer program that you can do, then you are advised to seize the opportunity. It should increase both your learning and reading efficiency. It is not a good idea for a poor student to pay out large sums of money for commercial courses, as they are often no better than free ones and some of them can be very expensive indeed.

Most speed reading programs start with a test to see how fast you read at present. This acts as a base mark for your progress. When you start each session, there is usually a warm-up exercise to get you ready, then you are put through a series of exercises to develop your reading techniques. They will probably include things like more rapid eye movement and better peripheral vision, as well as attention to speed. You will often have to do a little quiz, to ensure that you are actually reading and taking in what you see, not just running your eye over the material. A program will have dozens, perhaps more

than a hundred different texts to use as exercises, and some allow you to put more in. You are hardly likely to do this, as it means typing stuff in to use later. This is not only a tedious process, but the results can mislead, because it does give you a speed edge when you re- read it later.

Computers are an ideal way of putting you through a speed reading course. It is easy to set a speed for you, then increase it to match your personal needs, as your reading improves and you need extending more. You might get timed reading passages, where you hit a button when you have finished. You might have paced reading, where thescreen flicks over to the next page at a predetermined rate. This speed may increase automatically or in some packages you may be able to adjust it for yourself. The program might also be able to show you graphs of your progress. It is common to double one's reading speed after going conscientiously through such a course, but individuals vary a lot.

There is not one universal way of approaching the problem of learning to read better, but a few useful and general points work for many people. When you first pick up an academic book, or any book from which you wish to learn, you should first check the edition and publication date, to see how recent it is. Then you should examine the contents carefully, in order to get an idea of the coverage, and some of the more specialised words and subjects that you may encounter later. Check the preface or introduction, to try to ascertain the level and the target market of the book.

Before reading a chapter through, flip through quickly, reading the headings and subheadings. In this way you get an idea of what is to come and it helps to prepare the mind for remembering when you return to the start and begin to read properly.

Try to read in phrases, not word by word. The sense is often better discovered that way,and it is a quicker way of reading.

Try to read different material at different speeds, adjusting your speed to the material and your own needs. A lightweight escapist novel of the kind often read on 'planes can be read quickly; a newspaper might be skimmed through reading the headlines, but then you might slow your speed to read something of interest and slow down even more for the, sadly rather rare, item of immense interest. A good novel should be read more slowly than light fiction, as in this way, the writing style can better be appreciated and insight gained into the human condition. A quality news magazine should be read more slowly than a local daily newspaper. A textbook will probably be read even more slowly again. You will observe that efficient reading also involves tackling different material in different ways, i.e., choosing the speed and particular technique (such as the SQ3R above) that is most suitable for your purpose.

COMPUTERS AND YOU

The most important two things to know about computers are:

1. They are fun and nothing to be afraid of;2. You do not have to spend thousands of dollars to get one that will be suitable

for your needs.

Computers are fun, great fun. There are so many things that one can do, including a heap of games of a variety of kinds, that one could easily spend most of the day just playing about with them. If you have not handled one before - do not worry! They really are nothing to be afraid of. For some reason unknown to people, a lot of people suffer from a feeling of `If I press the F10 key, will the world explode?'. It won't; trust me. You are not too old to start, and computers are not restricted to those who were introduced to them at school. If you can work a TV set, there is no reason why you should not work a computer. If you can programme your TV video machine to record several programmes on different channels at different times, which for some reason defeats a surprising proportion of the population, then a computer might even seem easy.

There are basically two sorts of things you can do with a computer. You can either write your own programs (programming) or run those that someone else already compiled. If you are determined to be a creative user of computers, writing your own programs, designing systems and the like, then you are likely to end up in one of the professions where work is easier to find and often well paid. Information technology with financial/business acumen is particularly in demand. Most computer users, however, do not fall into this group.

The main users of computers do not themselves write programs but stick to running those written by other people, which are available off the shelf. If you join a computer subject and the handout or the early lectures keep going on about bytes, central processing units (CPU's), computer languages (like Cobol, Basic, or C), and rather strange habits like peeking and poking, then it is probably a serious subject about programming rather than about merely using computers. Using programs written by other people is where the fun lies for most of us and this is not difficult to do. What is difficult is using the program to its full capacity - many of them are so powerful (translate this to `will do so much for you') that it can take months, perhaps years before one could get to the end of their capabilities. Fortunately, unless you are teaching someone how to use the program, you are unlikely ever to wish to learn each and every thing that a powerful program will do for you. Once you can use it well enough for your purposes, you can stop learning. In fact you should stop learning: there is far more of interest to discover in this great and wonderful, if sometimes incredibly mysterious, world than how to move diagrams around in columns in a word processor, unless of course you have that particular need.

So you now realise that a computer will be handy and might even have started to believe that you need a computer. If you do not already have a computer, you should buy a cheap one if finances permit. How much will you have to spend? You should not have to lay out more than $300 in 1994 for a good second hand if rather slow or old fashioned IBM PC clone but probably a bit more for a Mac. These are the only two major varieties of personal computers worth bothering with: IBM PCs (a few of which are made by IBM but most by others, known as clones and often made in Asia) and Mackintoshes (Macs). IBM clones are the cheapest of all, but Macs are good and are easier to use. Genuine IBM machines are good but never as good value as most of the clones. At present, Macs still tend to be expensive and therefore even less good value in my opinion. However, the people at Apple (the firm that makes Macs), are aware of this and keep reducing the price of Macs to try to compete. For their part, the folks at IBM know that the appeal of Macs is their ease of use, and Windows, which is the name of a program, now makes the IBM-type machine almost as easy to use as Macs. The term `PC' usually refers to an IBM or IBM clone machines, rather than to a Mac. I personally use an IBM compatible and much of my practical advice below tends to refer to those machines. However, both IBM compatibles and Macs are powerful machines, and either will serve your purposes well.

Although Windows has made the PC easier to use, by pointing and clicking rather than having to issue commands, almost all Windows programs run slower than their DOS equivalent, Windows is likely to crash more often than DOS (and if you have not saved regularly you will lose your work) and Windows needs both a more modern faster computer and one with more memory than DOS does, which means spending more money. Newcomers to computing often like Windows for its ease of use, but those more used to computing often prefer DOS. The future definitely appears to be Windows but there are many out there who have tried both and returned to DOS programs.

A second hand computer (that works!) is a cheap way in and a good way of starting if you have little money and are prepared to take a small risk. Technical progress is so rapid in computing that many good, but by contemporary standards slow, computers are available second hand, as people upgrade to something fancier and faster. The shops will not normally accept them in part exchange as they are essentially valueless to them. An old second hand IBM clone is usually the best value. As a bonus, second hand computers almost always come with lots of software (programs) which makes them particularly attractive. If buying second hand, try to take someone a bit knowledgeable with you and insist that the machine be demonstrated in front of you and several different programs run that you can watch and if you have some competency at all, try out for yourself. Naturally, second hand computers do not usually come with any guarantee, so there is some risk involved. Generally speaking, however, a computer either works properly or not at all. It is not really easy to `bog them up' like a secondhand car and pretend that they are much better than they really are. As long as it works, which means that it can word process, use a spreadsheet and data base, and particularly can send material to a printer for printing, then it is likely to be fine. Naturally, an old computer will eventually die, but they seem to keep chugging along for years; I still have a perfectly satisfactory PC that is ten years old, and its only problem is that it now seems terribly slow by

contemporary standards. At the time of writing (1994) you should be able to pick up such a machine for less than $300 and maybe under $200, including hard disc, colour monitor and lots of software. As a rule of thumb that currently applies, an ancient but serviceable second hand machine might cost around 10 to 20 per cent of the price of the latest most powerful models available. This price relationship has not varied much of late, but how long it will last is not known. Buy a recent computer magazine - making sure it is published in your country first - and check the adverts for the latest prices. Please do not blame me if you are unlucky enough to buy a second hand machine that dies quickly. If you buy second hand you are accepting that risk.

When buying a second hand computer, check the newspaper advertisements on a Saturday morning. If you are sensible, you will already have bought one of the monthly computer magazines and read the advertisements and gained an idea of the price of computers and what is offered. Generally, you will find that in the newspaper, many people have completely unrealistic expectations about what they can get for a used computer. Many advertisements seem to be about twice a price that would seem reasonable. Sadly, if someone paid $2,000 for a computer a year ago, they might think they can get perhaps $1,500 now. They will not. Technology advances so rapidly that within a year the value might have fallen to perhaps one third. If you check the prices of new machines with a guarantee in a computer magazine, you will often find they are cheaper than people are asking for second hand machines of lower capabilities and without a guarantee! Of course, they do not really get what they ask, unless from some careless and foolish person who has not done his/her homework. If you buy a good second hand computer, it will tend to lose less value, rather in the way a new car loses a lot of value as soon as one drives it out of the show room, but a second hand one is worth the same as one drives it off.

If you wish to buy new, it is often possible to get a good 386 machines (see below for meaning) for about $1,200 - $1,400 in 1994, or a decent 486 with printer and various programs like Windows 3.1 bundled in for around $2000. Few people who can afford it would now buy a 386, because of the slower speed involved. New machines come with guarantees of course. You should be able to expect a lot of after-sales service and advice but you cannot be certain of this. A few shops or firms might be very helpful, but sadly many of them do not seem really interested once you have bought and carted the stuff away. Some are simply not good enough to sort out all your problems anyway.

Computers use either 5¼" or 3½" floppy discs that go into a slot. The smaller discs actually contain much more space and are both more modern and a better bet if you have to choose. There is still plenty of life in 5¼-only machines, but there will be less software available in the future. Some machines come with both sizes on them which is good. The discs are used for keeping files on and it is possible to run small programs from them. Any decent machine also has a hard disc that can hold many programs and heaps of files. A hard disc comes in sizes such as 20 megabytes or more, including 40, 60, 120, 200 megabytes or even bigger. The bigger the better, but 10 megs is archaic, 20 megs definitely a bit small, but 40 megs is enough for most normal purposes unless you run huge games, which tend to eat into the memory. A megabyte is of course a measure

of size.

If you are buying a new machine that is IBM compatible, you should get one with at least 4 megs of RAM (random access memory) and 8 megs are better. From your point of view, they make everything run much faster and allow the Windows program to operate. Less than 4 megs is too out of date and old fashioned and only acceptable if it is a cheap second hand machine.

The speed a computer runs at matters a bit: the faster the better. A basic XT PC, such as the first IBM machines, is slow and archaic but will do much of what you will want, but it will not run Windows; it will be good enough to start with. The `286' machines run faster, but are still ancient, still do not run Windows, but are also fine to begin on. The `386' machines are better and are only just beginning to look old fashioned; the `486' ones are fast; but the wonderfully modern and speedy `Pentium' chip machines are currently state of the art. In five years time they will presumably also look old hat. Modern (386, 486) machines run at 16 megahertz (MHZ), 25, 32 and even 64 MHZ. A 16 MHZ is probably fast enough for almost anybody.

To sum up: if you are poor, buy a decent second hand machine, maybe an ancient IBM clone with a 20k meg or more hard drive. If you are less poor, buy a newer second hand machine and get at least a 386 running at 16 MHZ or faster, with at least an 80 meg hard drive. If you are reasonable well off, you can go for the same or better, with lots of bells and whistles (computer jargon for fancy gadgets and bits and pieces that look and sound fine but are not really all that much use to most of us) and a guarantee.

What should you not be looking for? Specific word processing machines, i.e., they do nothing else but word processing, are relatively cheap even when new. In my view you are better advised to go for a personal computer proper. They are capable of doing so much more and, in addition, when you have to apply for a job, it helps if you are computer literate and can use one or more of the most common programs. It is increasingly expected that anyone hired will know about computers, even if the person hiring knows little or nothing themselves. Perhaps such a person specially hires those with computer skills, in order to remedy their own deficiency. However, if you already have a simple word processor and are competent on it, you may decide to stick with it, and you will not have to spend any more money.

So-called `personal information managers' (PIM), `information managers' or `organisers', are executive toys and are little more than an electric personal organiser and should be avoided. A personal organiser is a sort of big diary, which many people find very useful. It is easier to use in the old-fashioned paper format rather than as an electronic gizmo. In any case there are programs for the PC that will allow you to emulate a PIM is you so wish. `Fun but pretty useless' is a fair description in my view. Equally, almost anything labelled `palmtop' (as in palm of the hand) or `hand-held' is likely to be more fun than practical use.

Note book computers that can be carried around easily and used at home and at the

university are excellent but much more expensive than the equivalent desk top model. Portables fall into three broad groups, a) hand held, which are tiny and not yet of much use for most people; b) notebooks, which are the most useful size; and c) laptops also known as `luggables', which are older and heavier, as the nickname indicates. With current technology, notebooks are the most desirable. The really expensive ones have colour screens, but these are not really necessary, just pretty and fun. The three major problems with notebooks are a) the higher cost; b) the fact that they are more easily stolen; and c) they tend to be more susceptible to damage as they are carried around and probably get bumped a lot more than desk tops, and the degree of miniaturization involved can make some components more fragile. This makes buying second hand notebooks a bit riskier perhaps. Beware of the occasional manufacturer, including at least one with an international reputation, who labels a hand-held gizmo `Notebook' as a model name, rather than following the generally accepted use of the word `notebook' as a proper powerful portable personal computer. If the machine involved does not have a full sized screen, but a broad and short one, then it is not at the moment what we mean by a notebook computer. The distinction may blur with the rapid development of technology, as well as with the changing usage of English.

Multi-media is the latest thing. This means linking your PC to a TV set and doing lots of clever things. A multi-media machine includes a CD ROM drive - a CD holds a great deal more than any floppy, up to 44 times as much. `ROM' means "read-only-memory". i.e., you cannot write on it or alter it, just use what comes on it for whatever purpose it is designed for. A CD ROM needs a special drive which can be bought and fitted to an existing machine if you have a relatively up-to-date one and are prepared to spend the money. Really cheap ones run too slowly to show films etc. and are really only suitable for using text-specific CDs. Frankly, for your purposes, multi-media is not really worth it if you are an ordinary university student and a computer beginner. Later you could consider moving into multi-media if you really want to or need it. Putting huge amounts of material on a CD, e.g., an entire encyclopedia, sounds impressive and actually is. With a computerised encyclopedia, searching for what you want is easier and faster than using hard copy. Hard copy is simply a jargon word for printed material on paper. Searching electronically is easier than locating the correct (heavy) volume and leafing through it for the information you need. It is also much faster to leap to cross references using a computer than old fashioned printed books.

Once you have a computer, you should check the subjects offered by the University and go to any that might be useful to you. The Information Technology Service (ITS) offers regular free courses such as `An introduction to Personal Computers' or `Word Perfect 5.1'. These courses are advertised in the ITS Newsletter and in Griffith University's information sheet NOTA. While at university, you should take advantage of all such learning opportunities that interest you or might be useful later.

Everything sitting in your computer falls into three groups: the running system, the programs and the files. Unless you are a programmer, or very skilful and a little bit brave, you can forget entirely about the running system and concentrate on programs and files. Only if something goes wrong need you even think about the running system. This

is the bit that really makes the whole computer work and dictates how it will do so. Programs are packages that do things, e.g., allow you to write a letter or essay, or find all the books you read in January 1994. Files are the things you produce, e.g., the letter, essay or book list itself. These can be printed out if you need hard copy.

COMPUTER PROGRAMS

When you have a computer (the hardware) you will need some programs to run on it (the software). The main types of programs are word processing, data bases, spreadsheets, graphics/presentations, desk top publishing, games and utilities. There are also many specific packages for lots of specialised needs like accounting, statistics or running a medical practice.

What programs do you need? Most personal computers are used by most of the people most of the time for word processing. You will find that a spell-checker is very useful and all good word processing packages already include one. Some even include grammar checkers, but these are often too simple to be of much use at university level, unless your English is particularly poor. Grammar checkers tend to object to complicated sentences and creative writing. You must have a word processing package as a minimum: Word Perfect and Word are the two most popular of the powerful programs that run under DOS (rather than in Windows) but even a simple one will do almost everything you are likely to want at first.

Note that almost all programs have a number and sometimes a reference at the end of the name, e.g., WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS. The number refers to the model or release time of the program. The higher the number the better, as it is more modern and will do more as well as perhaps containing fewer bugs. A `bug' is something in the program that makes it do something it should not do and maybe sometimes even hang up (freezing the machine). If it says `for DOS' it operates under the usual PC running system, but modern programs will usually run under Windows although not in a small window with all its advantages. If it says `for Windows' it will not run under DOS, but needs Windows as its operating system.

You might also find useful a simple Computer Assisted Design (CAD) program, or drawing/graphics package. An example is the expensive AutoCAD, or Corel Draw or the much cheaper shareware package Draft Choice. Such programs are used to draw diagrams that can then be imported into your essays and assignments. A spreadsheet could also be used, although less easily, for this purpose. You might note that for many university purposes it is sufficient, and easier, for you to leave a space on the page and draw the diagram in neatly by hand, using a ruler and black or coloured inks. If you are an ordinary student, not intending to study computing, this is really all you need. In short, you can usually get by without a CAD program.

Data bases are not well named, it suggests they are used for keeping figures. They can be so used, but generally are not. Most data bases are used to keep information, such as

book authors and titles, or names and addresses for mailing lists, rather than figures. A good example of a data base is a library catalogue contained in a nest of drawers containing small cards. The whole thing is a data base, each card is a `record' and each element on the card is a `field'. Unless taking a course on how to use a computer, you may not have much need for a data base for some time, if at all. Well-known ones include Dbase, FoxPro, Paradox and Q&A.

Spreadsheets look like an old bank ledger and are used for doing a variety of complicated sums and other mathematical tasks, such as working out mortgage repayments at varying rates of interest. They are very good at this sort of thing, and it is easy to change a small part (e.g., an assumption about the rate of interest) and see what happens to the whole thing as a result. They are also quite good at graphing data and producing reasonable diagrams from figures. Again, you may not have much need for spreadsheets for some time. They can be used for storing and manipulating data, but are never as versatile at such tasks as a dedicated data base. Well-known good ones include Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, Quattro Pro, As-Easy-As and Supercalc.

Desk top publishing is a way of producing a simple newspaper or magazine, including text and pictures, but you should have no need for doing this at university. It is valuable if you are in a media course and great fun if you are producing a newsletter for some social club or political organisation for example. Other than that, there is little point in bothering with desk top publishing.

Various other special programs are around, for example statistical packages and accounting programs, but only specialists and researchers are likely to need access to these. If you go on into research, then you will find your own needs and fill them when appropriate.

There are lots of games for computers, most of which fall into categories such as simulation, adventure, strategic and arcade. Others games covered include chess, bridge, and mahjongg. I cannot tell what sort, if any, you will like, but I would strongly warn you that it is easy to waste, sorry spend, a lot of time playing computer games. They are often on the expensive side too.

Games seem to be exchanged a lot, by many people, often illegally. You should be careful when taking any disc from anyone else, or even accepting one of their programs on a disc of your own. Not only is it usually illegal, but you will run a high risk from viruses.

Computer viruses are a major problem, especially in high schools and universities. A virus infects a program and causes the computer to do things you do not want. It might merely flash up a silly message, or do something more serious like causing individual letters to drop out of words and float down the screen, or even completely destroy data and files. Of the over one thousand viruses currently existing, you are extremely unlikely to encounter more than a few, but even one is too many and it can be anything from a minor irritant to a total disaster.

Viruses are transferred from one machine to another via floppy discs. The golden rule is to obtain an up-to-date virus checking program and always run it on any disc that has been used elsewhere or you receive for the first time. This includes both discs belonging to others and any disc of yours that has been in another machine. Do this every time, especially if moving a disc from a university computer to your home computer. Several times I have had to clean the `Stoned' virus off my home computer after forgetting to check a disc that I had used at work. Even printing from a disc can infect it, so be warned. Sometimes, though rarely, brand new discs from stores have been found to have a virus on them. It is believed that this may be caused by the packs being opened and used, then rewrapped in plastic and sold as new. It is particularly important not to boot up from any disc that was last used in an other machine, as booting from an infected disc is the easiest way to ensure that if you a virus it will travel. You would be surprised how easy it is to leave a floppy disc in a drive when turning off your machine; when you turn it on the next time, the computer first tries to boot from any floppy disc it can find. It is worth developing the habit of checking to ensure that there is no floppy in a drive before you switch on the computer.

The University will give you a recent virus detection program free if you take a disc along. Telephone extension 5555 (the Help Desk) to take advantage of this offer. If you forget to check a disk and are unlucky enough to get a virus infection in your computer, you should immediately note down carefully what happens and write down what can remember about what you were doing when disaster struck. Then call the University help desk to get advice.

Utilities are programs that improve the working of the computer and make various jobs easier for you. There are many around. Probably Norton Utilities and PCTools are the best known collections. If you ever have a serious problem you will probably need one or the other. I personally have found a hard disc manager, which allows all kinds of things like copying files, moving directories around and renaming things essential. I have found a relatively cheap shareware program called `Director' is the most useful of these for the IBM PC, especially for jobs like copying all the files that were altered during that day's work to floppy disc as a back up. Coupled with a file editor like Boxer or QEdit, one can work wonders. You might find a hard disc manager useful immediately, but a file editor can safely be left until you are more experienced.

There are a few excellent integrated packages which include word processing, a spreadsheet, and a data base all in one. These serve the purposes of almost all ordinary users very well indeed. Microsoft Works is good and well known and there are versions for Macs and PCs. ClarisWorks for the Mac also has a good reputation. Others for PCs include 8-in-1, Wordperfect Office, Borland Office and Lotus Works. Integrated packages are not only cheaper than buying all the individual packages, but they are designed so that it is easy to move items from one to another. You can design a table in a spreadsheet and import it easily into your word processor which can be very useful for semester essays or special projects. They may also have a paint program included, which allows you to draw pictures, including simple diagrams. Windows itself includes a paint

program capable of producing diagrams that can be imported into the simple word processing package that also comes with it. The only minor disadvantage of integrated programs is that not all elements of the package are up to the same high standard as the best bit, and there are individual packages around that are better than each individual part of an integrated package. This is not a matter that should concern you if you are a beginner.

On balance, if you are starting from the beginning and buying a new computer, and feel the need for more than word processing, then a good integrated package is easily the best bet. It will do everything you need and a great deal more. Later you can move up to a more powerful specialist program if you feel this would be useful. If you buy a second hand machine, it probably will already have various programs on it, and if you buy a new one, it often comes with programs bundled in. It is easier and cheaper to use whatever you get, rather than buy extra programs for yourself.

There are three broad sources of computer programs: commercial, shareware and public domain. Commercial packages are almost always the most expensive and many of the best programs are found there. Shareware is a concept that allows you to try before you buy, and for little more than the price of a disc you can get many programs to test out. If one suits your purposes and you continue to use it, you are morally obliged to register and pay for the program. As an incentive, you often get a more up-to-date and improved version that works better or does more. Other incentives include some shareware programs working for a limited time then stopping, or not giving you the ability to save your work, which is pretty potent pressure. Some shareware programs are excellent and better than many commercial ones but at a lower price. Public domain programs are free, but with some few exceptions are often not as good as the first two types. If you get a Mac, you might be less likely to need and use shareware and public domain software, for two reasons. First, there is simply a lot more around for the PC than the Mac. Second, the Mac's running system is superior to MS-DOS for the PC (even DOS 6.1) and leaves less holes, i.e., the absence of useful things, than DOS, so there is a little less need to write programs to improve the Mac's running system.

While public domain and shareware programs abound and are great fun to try out and play with, most students only need a good integrated package. Beware of allowing your time to pour away playing with programs that you do not need. Many computer magazines give away a free disc of programs each month and while great fun, they can take up too much of your time if you let them. This also holds true for word processing packages. It is easy to keep trying one after the other, looking for that perfect program. There isn't one, just some that suit your needs and work style a bit better, or a bit worse, than others. It is easy to overlook the fact that the quality of your work is hardly likely to improve merely because you are writing it in WordPerfect, rather than a simpler and cheaper package.

You should obtain a screen-saver program if one was not supplied with the machine. Such programs blank off the screen after a predetermined period, which you can usually set for yourself. Two minutes is a reasonable time for many people. If you leave the

computer on but unattended, e.g., if you take a break or stop to find a particular page in a textbook, the monitor screen switches off. This save the monitor and extends its life; in particular it stops the words on the screen imprinting themselves and eventually making the screen fuzzy and harder to read.

COMPUTER FILES

A file is something that you write yourself, perhaps an essay, or notes about politics in Japan. You should, or rather must, always keep at least two back-ups on floppy disks of all the files you write so that including the original on the hard disc you have three copies in all. Time spent backing up is never time wasted. If possible, keep one back-up at a different address. Otherwise one day you will regret it when you accidentally delete a file and lose everything. Other possible calamities include a disk self-destructing and becoming unreadable, or the computer being stolen, or destroyed in a fire. Everyone who uses a computer has a horror story of not bothering to back up and then losing a file that may have days or even weeks of work in it. Please try not to learn this lesson the hard way or you will regret it bitterly. Equally, whenever you are using your word processor, remember to save regularly, at least every 15 minutes, or you might lose the lot if the electricity goes off for a second, or your hard disc hangs up (which they tend to do now and then). If you work all morning then lose all your work, you will remember to save inthe future. Experience is a good teacher but at the price charged, it had better be. Prevention is definitely better than any cure. Some of the better packages allow you to set automatic saves every 10 minutes or whatever you choose - if yours lets you do this, it is sensible to do so.

If you keep a lot of your material on computer rather than on note cards and the like, you will find that it is easy to access. You can do global searches for terms that are in files that you need to use in order to study or to prepare an assignment. It is far quicker to find everything you have on `World War Two' using a computer than by searching through a physical filing system and reading over the pieces of paper. Do not however forget to search on the computer for other variations of your terms, such as `WW2', `WWII' and `Second World War' or you might miss a valuable document. Other words such as `Germany', `Japan', `allies' or `USA' might also be worth a search, depending on your needs as well as what is in your files.

When giving your new file a name, try to choose one that will mean something to you later. If you call a file `WW2-1', it tells you that it is your first file about the Second World War, and `Jim1.let' will be your first letter sent to Jim. If you call a file something obscure like `memo' it could be about anything and to anybody; `bonj' merely looks mysterious and could refer to anything at all. You need to choose file names so that in six months time you should be able to read the name and at least have an idea about the contents and not have to keep loading it up to check what it was about. Note the use of numbers in the file name can help to differentiate files on the same topic but of different dates/contents. The last three letters after the dot (the suffix) can help a bit to suggest the type of file it is. There are certain extensions that should be avoided or used purposefully when choosing a file name. This is because they are widely accepted as meaning

something specific or else they tell the computer to do something. Some examples are:

- `.bak' is a back-up file (i.e., a copy)- `.let' may mean it is a letter- `.doc' means it is a document- `.wk1', `wk3' or `.wks' means it is a spreadsheet file- `.xl anything' is probably a spreadsheet file- `.db3', `.dbf', `.dbt' or `db4' is probably a data base file- `.mem' can be used for a memo- `.lec' you could use for lecture notes.- `.ndx' is probably an index file and should not be chosen- `.bat' always refers to a batch file (which you will probably

learn about later) and should not be used- `.exe' tells the computer this is a program it can run and should not be

used- `.com' tells the computer this is a program it can run and should not be

used

If you are unlucky enough to erase an important file or disc, do not panic! The important thing is not to try to recover it yourself unless you are a bit of an expert. It is easy to recover a deleted file and you do not need to be a computer propeller head (jargon for expert) to do it. You just need the right program and a bit of confidence and/or experience. There are programs around that will undelete a deleted file for you, notably Norton Utilities, PCtools or the Undelete program supplied in DOS 6.0. It is important that as soon as you realise the mistake, you do not try to use the disc. You must not try to write anything else or save anything to the disc. If you leave the disc completely alone there is a good chance that five minutes work will retrieve your missing file. If you cannot do this, then take the disc to someone who knows how to undelete. If the deleted file is on your hard disc, you can explain the problem to the expert and see if they will come to you. If not, you have to get the computer to them. If you have written something in the meantime, before you realised you had deleted the file, you should save the new file onto to a different floppy disc. If you have inadvertently saved something after mistakenly deleting something, it may overwrite the deleted file and you could lose a bit of it, or even all of it. It is always worth trying to undelete and seeing what you get anyway, as you may be able to salvage most of it.

If you are working on a file and something strange happens, e.g., funny faces suddenly appear, or the cursor moves without you doing anything, it is to be hoped you saved your work recently. Do not panic, but try to save the file under a new name - most programs have a `Save as..' command, that allows you to choose a new name. Once you save it as the new name, you continue in the new-name file, not the original one. If something has happened, at least you have saved an original file called, say, `Develop' as a new file `Develop1'. You will then have two different files to retrieve and can select the better one. Having saved, exit the program if possible, then go back in. This often fixes the problem. If it does not solve it, exit again, switch off the machine, wait at least 30 seconds, switch on again, and retry. If your original problem was the machine hanging

up, you will have to switch off, wait half a minute, then turn on again. Computers and printers sometimes seem to develop a sort of mental breakdown that can often be cured by turning off, waiting, and switching on. It is always worth trying before panicking and calling in the experts.

COMPUTER ODDMENTS

One of the things you must do quite early on in the piece is to make a boot up disc, using a floppy disc. If and when your hard disc hangs up or your system crashes, you can switch off, put the boot up floppy disc in the drive, and switch on. That will get your machine up and running and you can then start to investigate the problem and put it right. The boot up disc can often keep you working in an emergency and if you need to call in an expert, having the disc will make it much easier. It is absolutely essential that you make a boot up disc.

It is not hard to make a boot up disc. The usual way with a PC is to put a formatted blank disc in the drive, go to your DOS directory, type `sys' (for `system') and hit the enter key. A copy of the system is transferred to the floppy. You then have to copy the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files to the floppy yourself and you have finished the job. If you are not sure how to do this, check your DOS handbook, or any simple introduction to DOS, to find out how. If you have a Mac, copying the system is even easier.

Never turn a computer off then straight on again, as you can damage the machine. It could leave you without a computer until the shop can get around to looking at your machine, which might take a week or more. If you have an essay in the machine and it is due in, you have not printed it up, and have foolishly forgotten to back it up to floppy disc, you will be in severe trouble.

You must take care over the way you physically handle your floppy discs. If you are using the physically larger 5¼ size, they are very floppy and liable to be damaged more easily. Never put your fingers on the actual disc itself, but always pick it up by the cardboard cover. Be careful not to spill anything like coffee or water over the disc as this will normally either damage or destroy it. Bang goes all your data and files, unless you have been scrupulous about keeping back-ups, which I assume by now you have. Spilling a cup of coffee or tea over your keyboard is another good way of causing damage to your equipment.

You should never leave floppy discs within a couple of feet of a telephone. When a telephone rings it can set up a temporary magnetic field that can corrupt a floppy disc and damage your files. Computers themselves are well protected inside a metal box; normally the hard disc, and floppy discs you put in a drive, are not susceptible to damage by ringing telephones.

If you have an old machine, it often takes a long time to boot up and be ready for use. If you switch it on before you need it, perhaps as you pass on the way to do something else, it can save a lot of frustration and time wasting later.

Be warned that for many people computers are a time sink. You take your time and pour it away. Before you know it, several hours may have passed while you happily worked or played on the computer. It is not a bad idea to set an alarm clock if you have appointments or things to do later, just in case you become so engrossed that you lose track of time.

Once you have a computer, you will eventually need a printer. If you can print up at university or on a friend's machine, then you might manage without for some time. Second hand printers are not as good value as second hand PCs, as there are many moving parts on a printer and these wear out. If you are in a study group, perhaps sharing the cost of a new printer would be worthwhile. Printers fall into three groups, dot matrix, ink-jet and lasers. Dot matrix printers are the cheapest and perfectly satisfactory for most of your purposes, and 9-pin would be fine, although 24-pin ones produce a page that looks a little better. Ink-jets printers produce a nicer cleaner printed output but are expensive to run, and laser printers are the most expensive to buy, but produce the best appearance of output. A business firm needs one of these, but you do not. A decent new hard working bottom of the range dot matrix printer might start at a little over $250 in 1994 and certainly there should be a few under $300.

One thing you must never do, is to plug a printer to or from a computer when the computer is switched on. It is safer to turn both off before plugging and unplugging. If you try to plug a printer into a computer that is on, there is a good chance that you will damage or destroy the printer port on the computer, which means getting it repaired and paying out good money needlessly. In the meantime, you will be without your computer while you wait for the person to get around to repairing it.

You may find it useful to go over your notes and put the main points on computer in order to print them out which allows you to read them quickly and easily. Once you have printed them out, you can put them in your binder in the appropriate section, for later study and revision. You will find that this is much easier to do from printed documents rather than from hand written ones.

KEEPING CLIPPINGS

It is useful for all student to take a good newspaper (such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, or The Age) and/or good general magazine (like The Economist, The Bulletin and The Far Eastern Economic Review) to read articles of interest (such as about the budget, China, or Australian defence) that might be useful to you. In other Faculties, you would naturally follow your interests, e.g., if you are in Science, you might take The New Scientist or Scientific American. You can clip anything of interest and keep it for possible future use. Keeping clippings is becoming a little old fashioned as a way of storing information. Computer searches are so quick and easy to use. They also allow

you to use someone else's data base, and so can provide access to more comprehensivedata than your personal collection of notes could ever hope to be. Unfortunately, accessing electronic data bases costs money, which you probably do not have in abundance. Clippings are free, and as the economists say, the opportunity cost of doing this is zero, as you have already paid for the newspaper etc. that is the source of them. When you cut out an item, you should write the source, including the date and page number, on it

You can keep these clippings in a large envelope at first. As they accumulate, you will find you need more large envelopes or manilla folders as you will find a need to break them down more finely and develop a filing system. The subject outlines that you are given might be a useful way to start developing a filing system for your clippings, but one that works for you is all you need. After a time you will probably choose to adjust the filing system to meet your own needs as they become clear. It is better to avoid the habit of dumping them all unfiled into a large box, as they will remain inaccessible and you might as well not bother to keep clippings if you do not use them at all. Some few people have a psychological block against clipping magazines as it spoils them, and prefer to keep the entire issue. If you know what you are likely to need in future, there is little sense in keeping the whole magazine as they soon start to take up too much room, and most magazines that you would buy are easily accessible in libraries if you must search back. If you are not certain what you might want, then it is reasonable to keep the entire magazines for a time.

It might be possible to sell a set of clippings to a new generation of students when you are ready to leave university, but it is not likely that this will ever become a Get Rich Quick Scheme.

SOME GENERAL KNOWLEDGE YOU MIGHT FIND USEFUL

When you come across a phrase or school of thought with which you are unfamiliar, you should not ignore it but find out what it means. A good place to start is Alan Bullock and Oliver Stallybrass, eds., The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, 2nd edit, which lists alphabetically a whole range of views and ideas, broadly of this century, and generally explains them both succinctly and well. It is always worth looking up individual words or phrases that might baffle you, such as `semiotics', `post-industrial society' or `the theory of games'.

You should equip yourself with a good general dictionary anyway, and check up on any word you read that either you have not met before, or you have seen but do not really know what it means. Not everyone around you knows what `hegemony', `synergy' or `pedagogical' mean for instance, but as a university student you need to be aware of the meaning of such words. English is a rather strange language, in that spelling does not always reflect pronunciation, so you might also need to look up how to pronounce a new

word that you have read. The words `plough', `cough' and `through' look similar in the spelling of their endings, but they have very different sounds. Where the stress should be placed in words of more than one syllable is also often not obvious. There are several good dictionaries around, but I find the Modern Oxford Dictionary and the Macquarieparticularly useful. If you are interested in the origin of words, the two volume Shorter Oxford Dictionary is fascinating.

A good thesaurus is very useful, allowing you to find alternative words and avoid constant repetition of a few. A thesaurus allows you to expand your vocabulary in an easy way, but please do not search for really strange or unusual words to replace useful, simple ones in order to complicate your sentences. Roget's Thesaurus is the best known of several. You have to look up your word in the back, then go to the numbered itemindicated, (not page), noting that nouns, adjectives etc. are separately specified. You will find many alternatives to your word. A published thesaurus normally offers a much wider choice than a computer-based thesaurus.

On the more formal side of your study programme, the most up-to-date views and theories are to be found in the journals, not in the books, including text books, which by their nature are always a bit behind the times.

While you are at university, you can learn a lot more than the formal side of your education. There is a sort of `pop' knowledge that runs alongside the more serious study you will be doing, and if you are unaware of elements of this, you can feel a bit inferior or at the worst look a little foolish. This pop culture changes as new names-associated-with-views emerge, and a few older ones fall into disuse. It is an area that is often despised by serious academics as being trivial but to its credit it is an area of great fun and entertainment.

Some of the well-known names/views in this informal area are:

Edward de Bono, who is associated with the phrase `lateral thinking'. He recommends tackling any existing problem in a fresh way and trying to find a completely new approach rather than tinkering with, modifying or polishing it a bit, in the more usual way in. It is probably regarded as a good thing by the majority of those who bother to think about the issue at all.

Marshal McLuhan who is associated with the idea that modern communications are a force in their own right and have an impact just by being there and working so quickly around the world. `The medium is the message' was an early slogan that summarised his views. He had a good point, although some felt that he tended to belabour it a bit. If you watch a news item on TV and listen to it the radio, you might notice a very different slant that makes it sound like a different incident. TV news broadcasts tend to avoid items if the studio cannot show a picture of them, which act as a filter and restricts what you are told. You might come across parodies of McLuhan's famous slogan sometimes, often quite witty.

John Kenneth Galbraith, who amongst other things is associated with `private affluence and public squalor', the view that the state should spend and do more in society as the private market mechanism is insufficient to yield the best results. He is a bit unfashionable these days.

Arthur Laffer, who is associated with `supply side economics'; this is the idea that rather than tinker with the demand side to control the economy, we should tackle the production side and improve efficiency. He came up with the idea that reducing the existing high marginal rates of income tax could increase government revenue, because people would be induced to work harder or longer if they paid less income tax. He drew his famous `Laffer Curve' to demonstrate this. He tended to be laughed at by those of left wing persuasion, was influential in the United States after the middle 1980s, but the influence of his ideas declined, as his views were tested and the results came in.

C. Northcote Parkinson, associated with `Parkinson's Law', which is usually held to be that `work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion'. Actually his views are more complex and interesting, and many of the chapters of his book (Parkinson's Law) deal with expansions and variations on the theme, and he has various other interesting observations to make. Who else considers the way people circulate around cocktail parties?

Vance Packard suggested in The Wastemakers that manufactured goods include built in obsolescence and while they could be made to last longer, it was in the interest of the manufacturers not to improve quality. This is a popular view with many, especially if the item breaks down shortly after the guarantee runs out. Right wingers tend to deny it, left wingers tend to assume it is axiomatic, and dedicated believers in conspiracy theories tend to say `I told you so'.

Ralph Nader underlined the lack of participation by consumers, especially in respect of motorcars, in his book Unsafe at Any Speed. The government may legislate to try to help consumers but are often not very effective. Government is big, powerful and intrusive; producers are big, powerful and selfish. If they get together to set up rules and regulations, the consumers are frequently left out of the negotiations. If included, they lack clout as they consist of millions of individuals who are unorganised and not well informed. J.K. Galbraith had earlier pointed out in The New Industrial State that large public corporations enjoy a special and close relationship with the state. As an obvious example, the public service and the defence industries tend to develop a cosy in-club relationship and make many decisions that do not exactly benefit the masses.

Alvin Toffler, pointed out in Future Shock that technology is advancing so rapidly that it is hard for us to adjust as human beings. He stressed `the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time' and pointed out that `Most people are grotesquely unprepared to cope with it'. His view is quite widely accepted.

Lord Acton, a Nineteenth Century historian, known for the judgement `Power tends to

corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. It still seems relevant when judging some state leaders and important business people, and dare I say perhaps even some in the educational sector. It is still not a bad explanation, for example, of the phenomenon of directors of public companies awarding themselves huge salaries and `golden umbrellas' (massive payouts if forced out of the company), rather than really looking after either the shareholders, who are the real owners, or the customers.

Lawrence Peter, known for `The Peter Principle', which says that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Disregarding the political correctness of this statement (do women not get promoted at all or do not even reach their level?), I have a reservation. While most people can point to examples of this happening, a major failing in his proposition is that it does not explain why some people are promoted to well beyond their levels of incompetency and continue to rise like hot air balloons. Peter denies this violates his Principle but is not exactly persuasive here.

Chaos theory is new, complex and challenging. Simplified, it boils down to everything is interconnected, it is all very mysterious and complicated, and changing some tiny (and possibly apparently unrelated) element can have major unforseen consequences. At its best, it reminds us how little we know and can be a major challenge. At its worst, it can lead to nihilism (I told you that you would need a good dictionary) and a desire to abandon the search for knowledge and truth as we can never really know. If you are a person who worries easily about the world and its state, and particularly if you tend to depression, it might be an idea not to get too involved in chaos theory.

Fuzzy logic is what human beings quite often indulge in when they are trying to judge things and modify their actions. `A bit more' is a fuzzy statement, whereas `Five more millimetres' is not fuzzy but quite precise. Precise categorisation, like probability theory, refers to a black and white world, whereas fuzzy logic allows for many shades of grey. If we consider hair loss in males, we can go from a luxuriant head of hair all the way to totally bald. Many men in between these two extreme states could legitimately claim to be in either group. Fuzzy logic can easily deal with such interim states and has already been put into use in computerised systems in Tokyo to slow down and stop subway trains. Using fuzzy logic, they slow carefully and come to a gentle halt, as opposed to jerking people around under the previously normal system. In another development, there is a washing machine now on the market that sets its own water temperature and amount of detergent to use, using fuzzy logic. Economic forecasting might be improved using this approach too. The social and economic benefits of success here might be great. Be warned that it is still an area of dispute and not everyone thinks the approach will prove to be generally useful

Murphy's Law that is sometimes known more crudely as Sod's Law. You may have come across this before. It is simply `What can go wrong, will go wrong' and it is used to describe many unforseen accidents and errors. A good example is the person who, askedby a child to explain the Law, used as an example the fact that if someone drops a slice of bread and butter it always falls butter-side down. In order to convince the child of the truth of the Law, the person then demonstrated it by dropping a slice of bread and butter.

Sure enough the slice of bread and butter then fell butter-side up! There are certain corollaries of Murphy's Law, such as `If several things can go wrong, the one that will do the greatest amount of damage will be the one to go wrong'. The real pessimists may remark, `As Mrs. Murphy said "Murphy was an optimist"'.

8 IN CONCLUSION

`O most lame and impotent conclusion.'

(William Shakespeare, Desdemona to Iago, Othello, 148).

Going to university is a voyage of discovery. Such a journey has attendant uncertainties and you probably have initial fears. There are two areas of discovery open for you to explore and if you are fortunate you will delve into, and gain from, both. The first area is the world of learning, where you are introduced to some facts, some models, and many ideas and theories. You might even encounter a few different paradigms (more about that in your subjects). The second area of exploration is you. You might learn a lot about yourself, at first a bit about what you are. Then as you gain from your study and education, you will probably begin to change. You might then start to think about what you used to be, and also what you are becoming. Changing and improving yourself in this way is one of the greatest gains you can make from attending university, and is in my view more important to you than any set of facts that you may learn. The facts will become outdated, but a better you remains a better you for ever.

There is a great big wonderful world out there and we are lucky enough to live in it. It is complex and, although we may think we know a lot about it, we actually understand relatively little. The ancient Greeks tried to codify all existing knowledge, and on the whole they did not do a bad job. They could at least try this because back in those days humans knew so much less about the world in which they lived. We now know that the world is mysteriously complicated, perhaps more even than we imagined. Although we have accumulated much knowledge about it, as we push the boundaries of learning back, we seem to reveal new areas about which we do not know. Some of what we believe we know, perhaps even a large part, is undoubtedly incorrect. Unfortunately we do not know which part.

One lifetime is quite insufficient to learn all that is already known, let alone what remains to be known. This statement is not only true of all knowledge; it is no longer even possible to learn all there is to know about a single discipline. These days we specialise, in order to try to know as much as possible. The person who designs sewage farms is not the same person who designs aeroplanes; this is a comforting thought when flying. A cynic once defined an expert as someone who knows more and more about less and less; in some versions the statement ends as `someone who knows everything about nothing at all'. This critical view at least recognises the great need to specialise. If you acquire a joy of learning while at university, you will have something to treasureuntil you die. Your life will be much more interesting and you will also probably enjoy it

more. This, sadly, cannot be guaranteed, but it seems on balance to be probable. The Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham once posed the question as to whether it is better to be a pig, which is satisfied, or a human being with a brain, but also with worries and uncertainties. Fortunately, we do not actually have to make the limited choice that Bentham posed.

It is important to tread the line between enjoying the wonderful life and freedom that university offers, and studying. The former includes much socialising, making friends, eating, drinking, talking, arguing, staying up all hours and generally having a good time. The latter involves self discipline and hard work, keeping your motivation up, your learning expanding and your achievements increasing. It is a good idea to stop every now and then and take stock. You should think about what you want to do, what you have been doing recently, and consider whether you should make an adjustment in your behaviour pattern. You might need to swing a bit more effort one way or another. For many it will probably be in the direction of being a bit more sensible and doing more studying and less socialising, but this is not inevitably the case. Try to get your own balance between the two right, and then keep an eye on it. Remember that what you drifted into doing in the first three weeks of university life may not be what you should be doing in the last six weeks of the semester.

With this in mind, remember that studying at university should be fun as well as useful to you. In the past, some might have told you that your schooldays were, or would prove to be, the happiest days of your life. If we are charitable, we might say that they unintentionally misled you. For many people schooldays are not their happiest times and a university offers far more opportunities for excitement and happiness than most schools. This is a great and exciting time of your life - make the most of it! Learn and enjoy!!